Serpents and Eye Caps
by Catthhay
Summary: Hebi Teal is an orphan. Hebi Teal is an experiment gone right. And Hebi Teal just wants to be Hebi Teal. Fifteen years old and homeless, she meets a certain blind Lawyer that just wants to help her out a little. But they have similarities they aren't aware of yet; and soon they end up closer than they thought they would. Father figure Matt/OC (platonic/familial relationship).
1. Chapter 1

Matthew Murdock was likely one of the most observant blind men in the world. Perhaps not the most, if a certain asshole from his past was still alive, but definitely way up there. However, it didn't take a guy with preternaturally enhanced senses to tell that the street performer on the side of the road was a minor. Sure, no other blind man would have even noticed the girl was there, but everyone with light registering eyes could tell. To them, it was the fact that she was thin and still growing, that her face held a youthfulness that was absent in adults. Perhaps they could just feel, instinctively, that she was not eighteen.

To Matt, it was her heartbeat that first exposed her. Too fast to be an adult's, but slow enough that he could assume she was used to exercise. Then it was, as creepy as he realized it sounded, her scent. Even from several yards away he could smell the indescribable youth that clung to her, mixing with the scent of herbal teas and dust that hung close around her skin.

But what alarmed him, besides the fact that there was a minor performing what seemed to be a mix between dance and contortion in the streets alone, was the temperature he could feel coming off of her skin when he focused on her. It wasn't normal, it was hovering right around ninety degrees— at least seven degrees lower than it should have been. How the hell was the girl even conscious? Ninety-five degrees was the temperature indicative of hypothermia, and since it was the beginning of summer in New York it was unlikely that she was freezing from her spot dancing in the sun. In fact, in complete opposition of the human biology, she seemed to be the absolute poster girl for health at the moment.

"Matt?" The concerned voice of the blind man's best friend, Foggy, drifted over to him through the slight bustle of the morning around them. "You've been looking towards that girl for the past minute. Something up?" Something seemed to occur to the other lawyer then, causing him to step closer to his blind friend and whisper; "does it have to do with double D?"

"What? No," Matt whispered back, eyebrows furrowed and visible over his round glasses. "There's something weird about her. And if she's out here, she probably could use some money."

"So could we," Foggy reminded him, mouth turned down at the corner like it did whenever he thought about their firm's money issues. But, as Matt predicted, the fact that the girl was clearly only a teenager softened the guy. "What do you wanna do about it? She's probably running from CPS if she's out here alone. The moment she sees that we're lawyers, she's gonna book it."

"Maybe," Matt agreed, tilting his head slightly in thought. "How about you go ahead to meet our client? She's less likely to run if the lawyer talking to her is blind."

Foggy let out a long suffering sigh, rubbing his forehead in exasperation. Whenever Matthew Murdock got the scent— literal or figurative, take your pick— of someone in need, Foggy knew he was impossible to stop when it came to helping them.

"Fine," the blond finally agreed reluctantly. "But don't bring her back to the office. Give her some classic Murdock advice, maybe some money, inspirational one-liners maybe. But we can't take in a stray, Matt. We barely have enough resources to take care of ourselves right now."

The smirk on Matt's lips was not reassuring. "Yeah, Foggy. Don't worry about it, I'll just talk to her for a minute and see if I can help her at all. I swear, I won't bring her back to the office."

Foggy shook his head, deciding that was probably the best he could hope for and took off towards their newest client's house. Matt stood there for a moment, listening to the slightly staticky music coming from the cheap battery-run speaker that the girl had playing until the song ended. He took the lull in performance to walk over, getting the girl's attention when she straightened up from collecting the money that had been dropped in the bowl she had set up. He could instantly feel how her muscles tensed upon seeing him, probably from the suit he wore. But she didn't instantly flee, which meant she had picked up on his blindness and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Hello mister," her cautious voice floated out to him. It was smooth and slightly dark, like an auditory version of brown sugar sprinkled with innocence. "You lookin— eh, trying to find me for something?"

Matt chuckled softly at her fumble, not at all offended. "Not really. I'm not from CPS, if that's what you're asking," her muscles instantly relaxed a bit, and Matt caught a sigh of relief come from her lips. His own inched up into a smirk. "I take it my friend was right, then? I'm Matt. A defense attorney. But I really just wanna help people, and you seem like you need a little help."

She was, justifiably, a bit suspicious and distrusting. Matt distantly registered that she was a mouth breather, though it wasn't noticeable and surprisingly wasn't annoying either. Her breaths were still soft, more quiet than most despite not going through her nose.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound creepy at all Mister," She drawled sarcastically, her body straightening to telegraph confidence. "You got ten bucks? It'll buy me food for the week."

How somebody could buy a week's worth of food with ten bucks escaped him, but he figured she was resourceful enough to find a way. Especially if she was homeless like he suspected. Homeless people were extremely resourceful, more so than people gave them credit for. Matt knew he shouldn't push his luck, he didn't want to come off as a predator. A young girl like her probably had to deal with more than her fair share of that sort. No, he decided, he couldn't help her very much as Matt Murdock yet. But he'd keep an ear out for her when he was out at night, Daredevil was better equipped to help her out anyway.

"If you come back to this spot sometime next week, I'll give you another ten," he said instead as he pulled out his wallet and took out what he was pretty sure was the right bill. She didn't correct him when she took it and her heartbeat didn't change, so he figured it was right. "Just to make sure you're safe. And if you ever need legal help, or really any help at all though I really hope a teenager like you won't," he handed her one of his business cards too. "You can always call us. Doesn't even have to be me. My partner Foggy or our Secretary Karen will also be happy to help you. Even if all you need is a quiet place to sit for a bit and a free cup of coffee."

"Coffee is very tempting, no matter how many times I'm told it'll stunt my growth," she slowly replied, still sounding cautious. The fact that she took the card at all made him feel a bit better though, so he decided not to push his luck too far and nodded a friendly goodbye before turning to head the same way Foggy had went a few minutes earlier.

He could feel the girl's eyes follow him until he was out of sight.

—*—*—*—*—*

I watched the red headed lawyer until he turned a corner down the street, the business card he gave me heavy in my hands along with the five dollar bill he had accidentally given me. Perhaps I would have corrected him if it had been bigger than a ten, but my dancing had gotten me a pretty good amount of tips so I figured it wasn't a big deal if he gave me less than he thought he was. I could milk a lot out of five bucks, after all. It helped that my metabolism was currently far slower than a normal human's, allowing me to survive on a lot less than most. As long as I was careful to avoid empty calories, I'd be fine.

Deciding I had loitered long enough, I picked up my cheap speaker and dumped the money I had gotten into my bra. I had specifically worn a size bigger than I needed to keep it from looking weird when it was stuffed haphazardly with cash. With that done, I left the cash bowl on the ground and ducked into a familiar alley.

It didn't take long for me to get to the secluded dead-end alley that I made into my makeshift home. A complicated system of ropes hung down from the slightly unstable fire escape on the side of one building, holding up my large hammock that I used to stay away from the worst of the rats and roaches on the disgusting New York ground. I might be homeless, but I liked my hygiene. Plus, my various genetic abnormalities occasionally got out of hand. Unlike most mutants or mutates, my abilities getting out of hand didn't mean any kind of mental overload or possible public destruction most of the time. The less chance my instincts had to try to devour a New York rat raw, the better in my opinion. My abilities were odd enough to malfunction that way.

Making sure I hadn't been followed, though I had kept a careful eye on that the whole way home, I climbed into my dusty hammock and emptied out my money from my first location of the day. Reaching for the ropes that held my hammock up, I carefully pulled myself up the slightly fraying tendrils so I could grab the box carefully attached to the underside of the fire escape landing above my hammock where nobody could easily see it. Settling back down on my cheap cotton home, I gently pulled the lid off the metal box. I took out the orange, paper towel filled with blueberries, and small satchet of herbs for tea before placing my newly earned money in the newly emptied spot. I kept the five dollar bill the lawyer had given me, planning on using it for some hot water and maybe protein. Beans were most likely, but maybe I'd get lucky and be able to have meat.

Putting away the thirty-six dollars I was saving back in the tin, I climbed back up the ropes and secured it back into the blind spot taped under the fire escape. By the time I was done taking my sweet time eating my meager meal of fruit, it was one in the afternoon. I sat on my cheap cotton makeshift hammock, tilting my head back and closing my eyes to just listen to the city around me.

It was hard. My hearing wasn't the best. I wasn't deaf, but some hearing aids would probably help me out a ton. Then again, my eyesight was also pretty poor and I could also benefit from decent glasses. But, I was homeless. And therefore, dirt poor. There was no way in hell I'd be able to afford either of those things, but…

Part of me didn't want any, anyway. I didn't mind a slightly blurry sight. And having bad hearing meant that I wasn't constantly overwhelmed by the noise of New York. I had other things to make up for it, anyway. I didn't need perfect hearing or sight.

Regardless, it was nice to sit back and try to listen to as much as I could hear when I got a quiet moment to do so. Right then, on my slightly swaying home, I could hear the muted bustle of countless conversations, countless voices. I could hear the rumble of vehicles and the occasional bark of a particularly close car horn. I couldn't discern any single sound from one another, but they blended together in a way that was beautiful in its own way. A new sound, a symphony of the city. Every sound blurred together to make something new.

Yeah. Screw hearing aids, this was just fine.

I sat there for who knows how long, in a mostly meditative state as I listened to the slightly muted city. I could feel the heat of the sun farther along in the sky, which eventually told me that I had sat still for long enough. Basking was fun and all, but it was time to go back to performing to see if I could squeeze any more money out of the busy people in the city.

Pushing myself slowly out of my hammock, I sighed. People made me nervous, I didn't like being around too many at a time. I was a loner. But survival was survival, I'd bite the bullet for now. Maybe I could sneak onto a high school campus to get hot water, they had to have a microwave in the teacher's lounge. If I timed it right, I'd be fine. After all, I was supposed to be in school anyway.

Speaking of which, I needed to remind myself to be on the lookout for truant officers.

Wait. Hot water. Coffee was made with hot water.

Tugging a certain card out of my pocket, I smiled. A quick trip wouldn't hurt, would it? After all, I needed my daily tea.

—*—*—*—*—*

Okay. The trip to the law firm had been uneventful, nobody had been inside when I slipped in the small area and stole some hot water. Ironically, that had been the part of my day I had been most worried about. It was new. New people, new territory, unknown dangers.

But it was something I did every day that ended up screwing me over that night. I had just finished my last street performance of the night, my new twenty-two dollars in my bra as I slunk into the darkened alleyways just after midnight. My mouth was open, allowing me to navigate the nearly pitch-black areas with ease as I deciphered the information being processed by the sensors inside and around it. The scent of my dandelion and chamomile tea from earlier still hung heavy around me though, making me slightly more vulnerable that usual. My fault for making such an herbal blend that time around.

Because of that, I almost didn't notice the block of human heat around the corner only a few feet away from me once I had made my way through the inky alleyways for at least ten minutes. The shadows clung heavily around every wall, denying me the ability to see the person with my eyes. But I didn't need to. The pits hidden just under one layer of skin on my lips could easily sense his heat, could easily give me a mental image of his ninety-eight degree body standing with perfect stillness right around the building's bend.

I froze as well, identifying easily that the person— male, he smelled like a male— was likely not a friend. I opened my mouth a bit wider, allowing my tongue to slip closer to the edge of my lips to better catch his scent.

Beer. Dirt. Sweat. Leather— that scent was low, so probably just his boots. Metal. Gunpowder.

He was leaning against the wall. Taking as silent of a breath as possible to gather my wits, I carefully stepped over to the building he was hiding behind. Placing my hand on the grimy brick of the wall, I closed my eyes and focused.

There. I could feel his heartbeat vibrating, first through his own body and then through the brick. A steady thump, not nervous or afraid. Collected. Calm. Pulling my hand away, I felt my lips tug down into a frown. The only people who held loaded guns while hidden around the corner of a building past midnight without any hint of nerves was a professional. And even with Fisk behind bars, professionals weren't uncommon in New York or Hell's Kitchen. But they weren't common, either.

Walking home that late at night was one of the only routines I allowed myself. I never took the same path, but I went at the same time every day. I could take care of myself better than most adults. But this presented a problem; he was standing at the lip of the dead end that held my hammock.

I had been followed. Someone had tracked me, somehow, until they had found the paths I could not change up. Until they located my end point.

Fuck.

The threat to my territory, my territory! Forced an instinctual hiss from the back of my throat. Unfortunately, the alleys were silent enough for that sound to make its way to the hidden gunman, who wasted no time swinging himself out of his hiding place and opening fire.

Silencer. Muffled shots rang out, the heat of the bullets in the air offering me enough warning to just barely dodge their path. But more heat signatures, ones that must have been just barely out of my range, started dropping from rooftops or running down alleyways. There were only four new people total, but that was already a bit of a handful for me. They all had guns.

Abandoning my attempt at stealth, I threw myself towards the original attacker, throwing my arm out in what would have been a clothesline for anybody else, but instead of staying straight my arm coiled inhumanly around the man's throat, my torso twisting so my right knee could knock his gun out of his hand before he could fire. My ears were able to pick up his strangled gasps since his head was so close to my own, but I doubted anyone else would be able to hear them.

But. Well. After another moment of close listening, I realized I had misjudged my strength and had snapped his windpipe. I frowned, but unwound my arm to let the man drop—not before kicking his gun far down the alley of course— because he likely was in too much pain and struggling too much to breath to attack me again. Sure enough, he crumpled to the ground like a rag doll.

I wasn't allowed any time to collect myself though, two of the new assailants showing up at the same time with their guns aimed. Neither had any hesitation with shooting at me.

I dove to the ground, but their bullets followed. Unfortunately, the guy with the broken windpipe ended up in the crosshairs with at least three bullets in his chest that had been meant for me. The scent of his blood perfumed the already musty air.

That made me curse under my breath. I was by no means a stranger to death, but I had hoped to avoid seeing it or being around it again as much as possible. Add that to my list of failures.

I twisted and leapt and ducked around the bullets, but not even the split second forewarning I got from the bullet's heat signatures could just magically make me fast enough to dodge them all.

So when two bullets made twin grazes on my shoulders, a primal hiss ripped itself from my throat.

No. Shit. I haven't eaten any protein today, and my metabolism is already slowed as much as possible. This situation isn't helping— I can't let it come out!

I could feel the primal source of my abilities trying to claw its way up, not thinking that I was capable of survival on my own. It might have earned me another graze on my leg, but I still took the time to push it down as far as it could go.

My foot found the night vision goggles of one of the men, shattering it and sending shards into his eye. The shriek echoed across the alley, silenced by my kick to his temple right as the last two assailants turned the corner.

That wasn't good. I was better at ambush, at one-on-one or two-on-one battles. Being outnumbered wasn't something I was great at walking away from in good shape.

But I would survive. I had to. Apparently they had decided I was more risk to them alive than I was beneficial. Not surprising.

I was able to get close enough to wrap my leg around the barrel of one gun and my arm around another. Ignoring the discomfort and vulnerability of my current position strung between the two men, I constricted my limbs around the weapons, leaving crumpled barrels in my wake.

I dropped from my precarious position, instantly trading punches with the two men who had discarded their guns without a second thought.

One of them had passed out after I landed a particularly hard punch to his forehead, but when I whirled around to face my last two attackers I ended up frozen in shock.

Perhaps I should have recognized the lack of gunfire from the last man to join the fray, or the suspicious extra seconds I had had to knock out the guy I had just finished with without getting hit from behind, but I hadn't.

And I definitely hadn't expected to see Daredevil landing one final hit onto the guy that I had been about to finish off. Five bodies lay in the alley now, one dead and four unconscious. I was suddenly hyper aware of the fact that I had only taken down three of those men.

"You would have had a bullet in your stomach if I hadn't shown up in time," the Devil's rough voice barely made its way through the thick air to my weak ears. "It was a good idea to get rid of the guns, but doing it the way you did just left you way too open."

It sounded like a harsh scolding despite the hints of praise and relief that seemed to be sprinkled throughout.

"Yeah, I'll admit that fighting against more than two people at once isn't my strong suit," I admitted slowly, keeping my mouth open and my eyes locked on the vigilante. I didn't have the cleanest record in the world, especially for a fifteen year old, so I didn't know whether or not he was gonna rough me up next. "When did you even get here?"

The man's head tilted to the side, and I felt as if his eyebrows would be raised if they weren't hidden under his red mask.

"I didn't exactly try to keep my fighting quiet when I landed down here. Didn't you hear me?"

I flinched, grimacing. The way he raised his head back up showed that he noticed.

"You didn't hear me," he said it as a statement, which made me huff.

"I'm not deaf, if that's what you're trying to ask. But yeah, I'm not that far off from it either."

He was silent for a moment. "So not only are you a teenager capable of taking several armed men down," he poked the guy he had just knocked out with his toe for emphasis, "but you're hard of hearing, too?"

I just stared at him for the moment, slowly backing up. This was already too much excitement for me for one night, I didn't need to be interrogated by the Devil of Hell's kitchen, even if it was a relatively peaceful interrogation.

"Look, we've obviously established the fact that I'm not normal. Good. Awesome. Now, I'm gonna pack up my stuff and move to a new alley and you're going to go punch up more bad guys. Alright? Sounds like a plan to me," I turned and walked straight to my hammock, hoping he'd take my hint and leave. I didn't need any extra craziness in my life, it was hard enough for me to get by as it was.

I had just finished climbing my hammock ropes to grab my cash box and landing back on the ground when I felt his hand on my shoulder. Of course I hadn't heard him come up behind me, damn jerk had probably taken the new information about my hearing into account when he decided to sneak up on me.

But when I instinctively turned to ram my metal cash box into his face, his hand was quick to catch me by the wrist. That contact was enough for me to figure out what was going on, and I growled lowly in irritation.

"What? Don't just sneak up on me like that!"

"Maybe you should be more aware of your surroundings," he retorted, letting go of me and letting me finish packing up my meager belongings. "You need to get off the streets. I can't let you just go to another alley, these guys are organized, dangerous. Their group has recently taken over more of Fisk's leftovers, they'll find you no matter what alleyway you hide away in."

I turned around, taking a deep breath in preparation to give him a serious tongue lashing. But the rain of sarcasm and sass never came, because in that instant his scent filed my mouth.

"Holy shit," I whispered, looking up at him with wide eyes. I had smelled that very scent twice already— once when it approached me in the middle of the day, and again when I entered the office saturated in it. "You're that lawyer— the blind— oh my god," I whispered in a rush, unable to control my word vomit. I did, however, notice the man's muscles suddenly tense and I took a corresponding step backwards.

"How did you find out?" The man's rough whisper barely made its way to my ears, and I quickly forced my breathing so calm down so it wasn't muffling his voice. "C'mon, if it's that easy for you to pick it up, I need to know!"

"N-no, nobody else would be able to figure it out the way I did," I whispered back, flicking my eyes to the mouth of the alley where the passed out gunmen lay. I wasn't too worried though, even if they woke up we were speaking too lowly for them to hear. Probably. "I— Okay, this will sound really weird and I can't totally guarantee nobody else can tell this way, but it's super unlikely," I rambled, but he was patiently waiting for me to get to the point, arms crossing over his chest. "Uh, well," I cleared my throat. "It's, Uh, your scent."

"My scent," he said again, not necessarily sounding confused, but rather very caught off guard. His arms loosened and dropped back to his side. "Your sense of smell is heightened?"

I felt myself instantly straighten when he got it right on the first try, blinking a few times in surprise before I nodded— and then remembered he was blind, and confirmed it out loud; "Yeah. It… it works oddly with me though. I can only smell when my mouth is open."

"Well, that is weird," he confirmed, his mouth slightly tipping up into a smirk for a split second before disappearing. "Look, it really isn't safe for you here. We can talk more about this once I get you somewhere more secure."

I felt myself instantly lock up, my jaw dropping instead of clenching like most people's would when they were stressed— the better to sense my surroundings. "Look," I said slowly, then winced at my wording before continuing forward stubbornly. "I'm used to running. I'm used to fighting—"

"But you shouldn't be," he cut me off gently, frowning. "I understand you being cautious when you thought I was just some random guy being suspiciously kind to you. But now that you know I'm not a pedophile or anything—"

"Technically speaking I still don't know that for sure, but continue."

After what I figured was a glare (it was hard to tell with the mask), he continued. "—You know I won't hurt you. I won't. You're not a criminal, and you need someone to help you. I just helped you fight off five guys with guns. Just… trust me a little bit?"

I glared down at my ratty tennis shoes, frowning in thought for a long moment. I didn't do very well with trust. But he wasn't affiliated with organized crime, his firm took down Fisk. And he took down Fisk in his costume. As Daredevil. Who was offering to help me. Daredevil wanted to help me. And he was a lawyer by day, so he might be able to keep CPS off my back for a little while. And… and there was probably not very many people more well qualified to keep me safe than he was. At least, nobody else that would actually waste their time with a street rat like me.

"And I can identify people by scent too."

I jumped at his voice suddenly cutting through my thoughts, and stared at him in shock that I could feel resounding through my very bones when his words sank in. "Huh?" I squeaked lamely. He shrugged.

"Y'know, just thought you'd feel a little more comfortable if I shared another secret of mine."

I couldn't help but shake my head, not quite understanding why he was going through all this effort. But he was. Nobody had ever put that much effort into making me feel comfortable before, into legitimately and honestly trying to gain my trust.

But still. I didn't survive to age fifteen by trusting strangers on a whim.

So I reached forward, ignoring the stiffening of his muscles as I gently laid my hand on the center of his chest. I tuned into the vibrations of his heart, nearly overwhelming with my proximity to their origin. But that was good. The more easily I could tune into it, the easier I could pick up on fluctuations.

"You don't plan on hurting me, or turning me in to CPS or anyone else?" I asked softly, eyes closing to better focus in to his heartbeat.

"No," he answered immediately. His heartbeat stayed steady.

"You just want to keep me safe?"

"That's the plan."

Not a single fluctuation.

I slowly peeled my palm away from his suit, sighing and running a hand through my hair. "Yeah, okay then. Thanks for not lying, now let's go before the goons wake up."

Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe this was a very good thing, because my most vulnerable week of the month was coming up in just two days. And no, I did not mean my period.

—*—*—*—*—*

Matt didn't have very many instances where he felt caught off guard. But when he was, it was usually because of some criminal or another. Not from the realization that a fifteen year old had just tuned in to his heartbeat to see if he was lying, just like he did on a near daily basis. It clearly wasn't through her hearing, obviously, but it was still the same tactic.

He just stood there, keeping track as the girl bundled her dusty makeshift hammock into a ball with her cash box in the center, holding the whole lump under one armpit.

"Do you usually channel your inner polygraph?" He decided to ask, one eyebrow raised under his mask despite the fact that he was actually pretty pleased by the realization. He couldn't help but wonder how similar her senses were to his, obviously there had to be differences if she could see and was fairly hard of hearing, but the thought of finding someone other than a certain asshole geezer that could somewhat relate to the way he observed the world made him very nearly giddy.

His comment earned a snort from the girl, and he could sense the muscles in her face move in a way that suggested she was smiling or smirking.

"Only when I need to, it's hard to do it all the time. I'll explain when we get to wherever you're taking me."

He nodded, accepting that answer as she fell in step slight behind him, Matt leading her out of the alleyway just as sirens could be heard heading in their direction. This made Matt glad that he didn't have to be facing the girl to be able to observe her, and he focused in on what he could sense of her to try to gauge just how bad her hearing was.

The sirens were nearly deafening to the masked man before the girl tensed and sped up to walk by his side. "You called the cops?" She hissed, sounding panicked. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"I wasn't going to let those guys get off easy, they need to be picked up. Maybe they can do us a favor and stay locked up. If you're that worried, we can always take the rooftops. The cops won't see us up there."

He carefully refrained mentioning the corpse that he couldn't just let rot. He knew it hadn't been her fault, and he didn't want to remind her of that guy just yet.

The girl stayed silent for a moment, then nodded.

"Rooftops sound good. I like heights anyway."

Matt felt himself smile, and his chuckle was just loud enough for the girl to hear. It didn't take long for the two to make their way up a fire escape and keep to the rooftops.

"Watch your step, it's easy to lose balance here," the vigilante warned her about one particularly wide jump as softly as he could while still being heard by her, earning a short snort from her.

"Don't worry about me, Double D. My balance is perfect," she gloated quietly right before taking— and perfectly sticking the landing to— the jump. Matt just shook his head with a small grin, and they ended up in his living room only ten minutes later.

"So, this is your safe place, huh?" The girl commented idly, walking around and getting a good look at the apartment. "So, who lives here? Or is this just a safe house of yours?"

"Oh, this is my apartment," he said casually after he closed and locked the window they came in through. He pointedly ignored how quickly the girl turned to him, or how her heartbeat picked up briefly in shock. "I figured this was the safest place for you to be," he explained as he peeled off his mask. Normally he wouldn't end his patrol for another two or three hours, but the girl was more important for the moment. "Come on, I'll help you bandage up those grazes of yours. And don't try to lie just because you know I'm blind now, I can smell the blood."

He heard her curse softly under her breath, which made him grin as he fished out the constantly re-stocked first aid kit. "Anyway, I know you went to our office and hung around the coffee maker for some reason, so you probably already know, but I'm Matthew Murdock. You can just call me Matt."

The girl nodded, and Matt could feel her gaze on him as he started to clean and bandage her wound. Her lack of reaction to the sting of the antiseptic made him frown— in fact, her lack of reaction to bullet grazes in general was concerning.

"I have to be in the right mood for coffee," The girl's voice was tentative, as if she was just trying to test out the waters. Now that the adrenaline had had time to wear off, she was awkward. Obviously she wasn't used to casually being around other people, which was also concerning. "But I like tea a lot. Which, Uh, you probably know. Even after being shot at you can still smell the tea on me," Matt had to laugh at that a little, because it was true.

And wow, it was a little surreal to be able to talk about something like that with someone who understood. For both of them.

"So you used the coffee maker to heat water for your tea?" He asked as he switched from one of her shoulders to bandage the other. She hummed and nodded in confirmation. "You know, dandelions are loaded with pesticides."

The girl laughed, a lot more freely than she had up until then. "Pesticides? You really think that's high up on my list of worries?" She asked with a large smile he could tell was on her face. "I'm homeless, I'm a hormonal teenager, and I'm being chased down by guys with guns and you think I'm worried about pesticides in my tea? But no, I stole the dandelions from an organic rooftop garden."

"Stole?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, but was just rewarded with a shrug that almost ruined his current wrapping on her shoulder.

"I'm homeless. Can't really avoid stealing sometimes. Besides, I make sure to only take what I need and not a single flower more. At least I don't pickpocket or anything."

"Okay, I'll give you that."

It wasn't until he was disinfecting the last bullet graze on her leg that he realized something rather important.

"Oh," he raised his head so he could look in the direction of her face. "I just realized I don't know your name."

The girl chuckled. "I was wondering when you'd ask. I'm Hebi. Hebi Teal."

"Teal? Like the color?"

"Yep."

"Well then," Matt finished wrapping up her leg. "Don't think we're not going to talk about your homelessness, Hebi. I meant it when I said I want to help you. That means getting you off the streets for more than just a night or two."

—*—*—*—*—*

 **A/N: Hello! This is not going to be directly related to the events in the TV series past the first season. Because I like Nelson & Murdock and stuff. The best avocados at law. This is going to probably have a weird mixture of TV, Comics, and MCU canon in it. Because I can't do things simply, apparently. Everything has to be complicated as shit.**

 **So yeah, this is self indulgent as hell and probably isn't the best, but I hope you like it anyway! I have no idea where this is going but maybe we'll all get lucky and it will turn out good.**

 **See you next chapter~**


	2. Chapter 2

When dealing with someone who might bolt at any moment, an individual must use caution. Take time and figure out which topics need to be covered right away, and which need to be given time before approaching.

Usually Matt skipped those steps and went straight to pummeling out the answers he needed, but obviously that method was only meant for people who deserved said pummeling. But he was, after all, a lawyer by trade. He knew how to prioritize when it came to questioning flighty clients, none of which were too different from the teenager stubbornly laid across his couch asleep. At least, not when it came to their reluctance to accept help.

The blind man had a feeling Hebi wasn't quite similar to any other living person in any other way than that.

Even Mister Fantastic would feel uncomfortable just looking at the way that the girl's limbs were twisted around each other like twist ties. She just overall seemed like a puddle of twisted up putty, even to Matt's senses. Part of him was glad he couldn't actually see the uncomfortable picture she displayed. Was that her knee she was using as a pillow? And her right arm was twisted around her left leg like the two flavors in a candy cane.

She had argued the night before that she'd be much more comfortable on the sofa than he would, and refused to take the bed with a stubbornness that would have made the Murdock name proud. Now he knew what she meant. If she could sleep peacefully in whatever the hell _that_ position was, she was probably just fine on the couch.

But the sun was inching up into the sky, and Matt knew he would have to go to work soon. He had to broach some of the topics he had purposely not brought up the day before, knowing that none of Hebi's problems would be solved just by spending the night in his apartment.

But shaking awake a fifteen year old who had somehow managed to mangle the barrels of two good quality guns the night before did not seem like the smartest idea in the world, regardless of the pretzel she had contorted herself into.

Food was always a good way to wake somebody up though, and Hebi's mouth was wide open with silent breaths so it should work. Without further debate, Matt made his way over to his fridge and started cooking.

Sure enough, the moment the smell of frying eggs made it past the stove the teenager started to stir. The lawyer felt his mouth tilt up in an amused smirk as he sensed her untangling herself and just generally getting back into a natural position before even attempting to stand up.

"So? Super flexible, huh?" He asked as casually as he could, flipping the eggs on the pan onto a plate he had waiting for her. "Anything to drink? I got soda and milk, and water obviously."

"Mm. Milk please," she managed to ask through a yawn, sitting herself down at the counter and picking up the fork he had set down for her. She seemed to stare at the eggs for a while before even cutting into them. "I guess I do owe you some explanation. I'll tell you my powers if you tell me yours?"

"I never said I had powers," he said teasingly, already knowing what her response would be as he continued to cook a serving of food for himself. Sure enough, Hebi snorted.

"Yeah, like a blind guy can be a vigilante _without_ some kind of ability. Besides, you already admitted to the smell thing."

"Fair enough," he agreed with a smile. The fact that she didn't even seem to entertain the idea of pity was nice, refreshing. Most teenagers were either crass about it or overly sympathetic, but she was neither. It was nice. "My other senses compensate for my sight. I could hear your heartbeat from down the block if I needed to, and I can feel your body heat pretty well. I can taste things in the air too, though that usually ends up way more of a nuisance than anything else. Vibrations in the air, you get the idea."

The slow breath from her was all the agreement he needed to that statement. "Wow," she breathed. "That's— that can give you an accurate picture of the world without needing to see. Echolocation, vibration sensitivity, heat sensory location, scent identification. There's almost no need for light registering," Matt could feel her shake her head in disbelief. "Damn, that's better than me. Like I told you yesterday, my hearing is shit," she took a big bite of egg, followed by a swig of the milk he set down for her.

He could feel the muscles in her face twist. "What? Don't like milk?"

"Hate it," she confirmed, making him raise his eyebrows. "Don't judge, I need the calcium. I'll stomach it if it keeps me healthy. Haven't eaten anything with any calcium in it for the past week, which is pushing it even for me."

Matt didn't want to focus too closely on the fact that she paid close enough attention to what she ate to know exactly which nutrients she needed. Instead he settled down with his own finished place of food, willing to patiently wait for her to finish her explanation of her abilities.

"Anyway. I do have internal ears, right at the back of my throat," Matt could sense her patting her neck with two fingers, right where it connected to the back of her jaw. "I can hear really low frequencies that way, some even lower than normal humans can hear. But my mouth has to be open to register that. Higher frequencies? Forget it. My internal ears won't pick it up. But I do have heat pits right under the outermost layer of skin on my lips, and along the bottom of my nose," she tapped those areas with one finger to illustrate her point. "Gives me heat vision. Pretty accurate too, probably even more accurate than yours. I can sense temperature and proximity, to a hundredth of a degree and a sixteenth of an inch. My tongue is covered in scent receptors, which is where my elevated sense of smell comes from," she stuffed the last of her egg in her mouth to give Matt time to decipher the information dump she had given him so far.

"So," Matt tapped a finger on the counter in thought for a moment. "Like a snake? Vipers and pythons have heat pits along their jaw, and snakes are famous for smelling with their tongue," he cautiously fished for information.

"Exactly like a snake," Hebi's voice was suddenly sullen, tired. Tired in a way that no fifteen year old should ever be. She sighed. "My bones are all segmented, like vertebrae. It allows me to move and twist them in pretty much any direction I want, like how a snake can twist their body into a knot. And my skin is sensitive to vibrations, probably not as sensitive as you are but definitely far beyond what a normal person is capable of. I can feel the vibration of a person's heartbeat from the opposite side of a building, as long as even a finger is touching the wall connecting to where they are leaned against. The floor works too, usually easier to sense their heartbeat's vibration through their feet anyway. And my muscle is proportionately as dense as a snake's. A constrictor's, to be exact," she reached for her cup of milk, downing it easily.

"And you think just my heightened senses are amazing?" Matt asked, eyebrow raised. He could feel Hebi's unimpressed glare.

"Well yeah. My physical shit won't help me if my mouth is duct taped shut and I can't figure out where the hell I am or if there's anything nearby I could use to help me out. I might be able to tell how many people are in the room with me if I can feel their heartbeats through the ground, but that probably won't help me out much. My eyesight isn't twenty-twenty either. It's pretty much a snake's eyesight— not good, but enough to get by without relying on inch thick glasses. You have a whole extra reliable sense than I do," she shrugged. "My other abilities are more internal. Like, I can adjust my metabolism. I can slow it down up to seventy percent so that I can survive for a week or two off of a glass of milk, a hot dog, and an apple. Can't speed it up much though, so my healing is only ever sped up by maybe a day or two compared to normal people. But you take what you can get—"

"That food example seems oddly specific," Matt interrupted her attempt to change the topic, his concern outweighing his need to learn anything else about her abilities. Judging by the pacing of her speech though, there was probably only one or two more aspects to it anyway. Just because she _could_ survive off of that little bit of food didn't mean she should have to, and it definitely didn't seem healthy.

"Okay, calm down," Hebi held out her hands to try and soothe him. He realized belatedly that she could probably feel his sped up heart rate through the counter. "Snakes can go several months after eating only one rat or mouse, so I probably could last a month on that much food. But I didn't even try, see? I know how to take care of myself, I don't take unnecessary risks. I'm okay."

"Thank you," he said once he was able to push away his worry. Which had been odd enough, it was normal for him to be a bit concerned for somebody in need but this was a bit much even for him. Why did he feel the need to keep her safe so strongly? He just met the the day before. Twenty four hours is not long enough to justify that strong of a reaction, and he knew it. "For trusting me," he continued. "You could have just half-assed your description or only told me a couple things. So thanks."

Hebi chuckled. "Nah," she said softly, turning her head in the direction of the window. Matt guessed she was looking out of it at the meager view it offered. "Thank _you_ for caring. That reaction… it's a bit foreign to me. 'Sides, knowing about what I can do doesn't automatically mean you'll be able to capture me or anything. We only agreed for me to explain my unnatural abilities, you said _nothing_ about confessing any learned skills to you."

Matt had to smile at that. "Be careful, or we might get confused about who the real lawyer is here," he teased.

"Or my background," Hebi continued impishly, and Matt could sense the smile on her lips. "You said nothing about telling you how I got my abilities or anything, so you're outta luck there. No tragic backstories today," she stuck her tongue out.

Matt raised his eyebrows, unable to get rid of the smile on his face. "What's that supposed to do? Smell my deepest secrets?"

"Oh ha, ha," she rolled her eyes, but the both of them turned to the door not a moment later when the smell of bagels drifted towards them from down the hallway.

—*—*—*—*—*

"Okay. When I told you not to bring her back to the office, I did _not_ mean to bring her back to your house."

"Technically, it's a really cheap apartment," I chimed in, successfully getting the newcomer's glare off of Matt and onto me. I recognized his scent as one of the two besides Matt's that saturated the office I had visited the day before. I turned my head to Matt. "Your partner?"

"Wait, how—"

"Yeah. Hebi, this is Foggy. Foggy, this is Hebi Teal."

"Foggy Nelson. Wait, don't distract me," the man drew his hand away from where it had been half extended for a handshake. "Dude, I get that being homeless sucks. But we don't have the resources to take in a kid."

"Yeah, well. I wasn't going to, until I had to save her from getting shot in the stomach with a military issue gun last night."

"Oh right, I still haven't thanked you for that have I? Thank you for not letting me die in a grimy alley."

"Wait, she was _what?_ And that means she knows you're Daredevil. You know he's Daredevil? Shit. You do. Dude, you tell her after only one day? Wait, why were men with military guys trying to kill a fifteen year old anyway?"

And there we go. The question I knew Matt had been skirting around all morning until he was sure I wasn't gonna bolt the moment he asked. I watched the redhead frown at his friend for a moment before sighing.

"I said no tragic backstories today," my voice was so soft that I couldn't even pick up exactly what I sounded like with my own ears, but I could tell by their reactions that it probably wasn't nonchalant like I was hoping. "But I guess if you're gonna try to keep me safe from them, you deserve at least the basics," I ran a hand through my hair, looking anywhere but them. "Okay. Let's get this straight, I'll stay here for nine or ten days max, then I'll be out of your hair, okay?"

"No, that's not the deal," Matt interrupted me, mouth set I a determined line. "You'll stay here until I know you're safe or I can get you set up in a safe arrangement—"

" _No,"_ I hissed, making both men tense in surprise. "I appreciate the sentiment, I do. Nobody gives a shit about the unlucky girl on the streets in New York, so I really do appreciate everything you've done this far. But I don't _deserve_ it, and you don't want someone who was trained to be a kid assassin just sleeping under the same roof as you for that long."

The silence was heavy and immediate following my statement.

"Those men," Matt said, clearly having to work hard to keep his voice loud enough for me to pick up on. How had he even already been able to assess what I could and couldn't hear, anyway? "Are they the ones..?"

"I seriously doubt those grunts know anything about me. But their bosses, yeah. Those guys wanted me to be an assassin they could sell out to the highest bidder, everyone trusts kids after all. I got out."

"But obviously they don't want you just running around unless you're under their thumb," Matt finished for me, and apparently my hum in response was enough of an agreement for him. "Yeah, you're not going back out on the streets any time soon. Who knows what they'll try in order to get rid of a rogue mercenary?"

That stumped me, and not even the odd gestures coming from Foggy could bring me out of my shock.

Just why was Matt sticking out his neck for me like this? I just… I just didn't understand.

But I was always too curious for my own good. I'd stick around, but just long enough to understand why this stranger _gave a fuck._ It didn't make sense yet.

"Later, Foggy!" the harsh whisper barely made its way to me. I probably only even registered it at all because my mouth was open and Matt's voice was just low enough for my internal ears to pick up. I snapped my eyes up to them, eyebrows furrowed in thought still.

Foggy sighed, shaking his head and putting the bag of bagels down on the counter. "Well. I brought breakfast because I didn't expect you to be up this early after getting beat up until who-knows-O'clock.

"Give Hebi one of—"

" _Half_ of one," I interrupted, but Matt apparently knew how to pick his battles because eh only frowned before consenting.

"Okay, give her half a bagel. She needs to eat more."

"What kind of bagel is it? Wheat?" I asked, watching as Foggy cut a bagel in half and gave me one side.

"Just plain," Foggy replied, blinking as he realized I didn't even attempt to go for cream cheese.

"Oh good," I was pleasantly surprised, smiling slightly. "That gives me a good amount of protein, fiber, and iron. I can always use whatever potassium and calcium I can get too, though I could do without so much sodium. And it's just been a while since I've been able to have a bagel at all, so thanks," I took a bite, chewing contentedly before realizing the room was just a bit too quiet. My eyes darted up, and it wasn't hard to notice both lawyers staring at me (or towards me) with expressions I couldn't quite decipher.

"You… just know the nutritional facts of bagels off the top of your head?" Foggy's voice was cautious as he slowly asked me that. I tilted my head slightly in thought, swallowing my bite of bagel.

"Well, I don't know the exact percentages or anything, and things vary depending on where you get the bagel from. But I try to memorize the general important nutrients in all the common foods, it helps when I have to decide what I need to eat next. The best way to make sure I never have to drag myself to the hospital is to make sure I get everything I need in my diet, no matter how pitiful of a budget I have to work with." I took another bite of my bagel. I wasn't used to talking so much, so my throat was starting to feel the strain. "If all I ate were cheap empty calories, I'd be dead of malnutrition long before I died of starvation."

The rest of my bagel was eaten in silence, both men slowly chewing alongside me.

"So. You go to school?" Matt asked slowly. Even I could hear the hope in his voice despite him definitely knowing better. My snort didn't seem to give him any extra confidence.

"I try to go for a while every year," I said slowly, shrugging. "But once CPS or the gunmen find out where I am, I ditch. I do try to spend a lot of time in the library teaching myself whatever I can though, so I'm not dumb," a pit in my stomach opened up, souring my mood. I wanted to go to school. It was normal, and I _liked_ learning. History and math I could usually do without, but I was totally up for suffering through them if it meant I got to learn the other subjects. If it meant I got to be normal for a while. "The mercenaries don't usually find my school though. They prefer to hunt me at night."

"So, in other words," Matt's purposely casual tone instantly caught my attention, making me narrow my eyes at him in suspicion. He ignored my sudden scrutiny of him, which I was pretty sure he noticed. I knew when people were being sly. "If we deal with the CPS issue, you'll agree to go to school?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'deal with,'" I replied slowly, frowning. "Besides, I've missed too much. Wouldn't I have to go to truancy court?"

"Let the lawyers handle that," Foggy interrupted, giving me a disarming smile that I didn't humor with any reaction. He was nice and all, and I could probably grow to really like him, but he was still a stranger for the moment.

"If we get you under the care of a legal guardian and off the streets, Foggy and I can handle getting you back into school. You might have to take a few tests to see where you stand, though."

"School is almost over for the year, though," I might not have been going, but I did keep track the the general school year schedule to know when I would and wouldn't be able to sneak my way inside one for shelter or food if necessary.

"Then it's best if we get you figured out so you can attend for the whole term next year," Matt plowed forward, not about to be discouraged by any of my arguments. I huffed; apparently he was just as stubborn as I was. That could get annoying.

"Okay, let's say I do agree. Who's gonna be my legal guardian? You?"

His smile was all the answer I needed.

"Woah, okay. Uh, nope. Crashing in your apartment for a week or two? Yeah, I trust you enough for that. You saved my life, and you didn't lie to me about wanting to keep me safe. But becoming my _guardian?_ Are you crazy? Wait, don't answer that," I held up my hand to keep him from answering, knowing he could sense it despite being unable to see my hand at all. "If you dress up in red and go around beating up assholes at the asscrack of night, obviously you're crazy—"

"My suit is red? I didn't notice," Matt innocently interrupted me, but I didn't buy that bullshit for a second and just continued on.

"— But you've known me for a day. A _day._ Saving me from some asshats trying to kill me does not justify wanting to be _legally_ _responsible_ for taking care of me—"

"You say _Ass_ a lot, don't you?" Foggy asked with one eyebrow raised. He was ignored.

"—And I just told you a few minutes ago that I was trained to be an assassin! What part of this whole situation makes you think that stepping up to be my guardian is a logical decision?"

"Well, have you killed anyone lately?" He asked, leaning on his arms towards me over the counter. I threw my hands up in exasperation. Did he not get it?

"No, but I _have_ killed before. I have baggage that makes the _airport_ jealous—"

"I'm not trying to date you, so I don't see what baggage has to do with anything," Matt interrupted firmly, making me pause. "Besides, do you think I'd go around as a vigilante without my own fair share of it?" I could feel his next sigh almost to my bones. "I'm not trying to be a father figure or anything—" my breath hitched at the word father, but thankfully he pretended not to notice. "—But you need someone to take care of you. Legally if for no other reason, because you are obviously _physically_ capable of taking care of yourself. And you don't have to worry about me being in danger because of anybody that might be after you, since I can protect myself just fine. We can just coexist, if that's what you are comfortable with. I'll be legally responsible for you, allowing you to go to school and have a safe place to sleep indoors every night, and you won't have to worry quite as much about money or food. You'll have someone to back you up in you're in danger, and the CPS will get off your back. There really isn't any reason for you to _not_ accept."

And there we go. The biggest reason people avoid getting tangled up with lawyers— they knew how to make a damn good argument. I grit my teeth.

"Sounds pretty one-sided to me," I muttered, hands clenched tightly into fists. "What's in it for you, huh? Nothing's ever free."

"Well," Matt straightened up, shrugging lazily. "I guess it'll help my conscience if I can make sure you're okay. But if it makes you feel better, I can always make you train with me on weekends at the gym I go to. I could use some combat practice against someone like you."

"So, what, that's it?" I asked again, frustrated that I couldn't wrap my head around the situation at all. "I get to be safe and taken care of, and you get _combat practice?_ That doesn't seem fair—"

"Why are you trying so hard to get him to give up on you?" Foggy's voice made Matt and I whip our heads over to him. The frown on the blonde's face seemed out of place, as if he was better off smiling and being serious just didn't suit him.

Then I made the mistake of looking into Foggy's eyes. Despite his arguments for not taking in a stray like me, he actually _did_ seem genuinely concerned for me. And eyes as honest as those just had a way of completely wiping away my urge to fight and stay stubborn.

"You know, you're just gonna make Matt even more determined to take you in," Foggy continued, making me furrow my brows in confusion. "You see, all you've been doing is arguing about why it's unfair to _him._ You haven't even once said anything about it being unfair to you, or asked for anything he didn't already offer. That selfless attitude is only gonna make him want to keep you safe even more. The two of you are clearly kindred spirits already— stubborn, selfless, badass. Please tell me you don't have a martyr complex," he met my eyes almost desperately. "You don't, right?"

"Uh, well I mean," I just didn't _get_ these people. "I… don't think so?" I shook my head, knowing Foggy had successfully thrown me off my game and now I didn't have any chance at winning my argument with Matt. "Damn it, tag teaming should not be allowed!"

"If it gets you to agree, I'm all for it," Matt quipped, dutifully ignoring my responding glare. I growled under my breath and crossed my arms, not caring how childish it was.

"Yeah, Yeah, fine, whatever!" I finally caved. "I won't get you to shut up about it until I do, and being able to stay in your apartment will seriously help me out for these next few days, so I don't really have much of a damned choice."

"Awesome," Matt said with a smile, standing up. "Foggy and I have to get to work now. I'll make a call to CPS— oh," he suddenly seemed to realize something, looking down at me. "You don't have a phone, so you?"

"Please tell me you know the answer to that already," I drawled, eyebrows raised. He nodded, unsurprised but frowning all the same, and disappeared into what I assumed was his room for a moment before coming back out.

"I can probably afford to buy you a cheap phone later. For now, take this. I usually use it as my Daredevil burner, but it'll be your phone until I can get you one. Don't call any of the numbers on it—"

"There's only two numbers on it anyway—"

"—and I'll call you if CPS decides to have a meeting with both of us today. I guess you can go out to perform, but if the CPS agents ask, I did not allow you to. Okay?"

"Yeah, I got it," I agreed easily as I stuffed the phone into my pocket. His nose wrinkle was easy to decipher.

"Oh come on, I'm homeless. You can't seriously expect my clothes to smell great."

"No, but now my burner is going to smell like Hell's Kitchen's alleyways."

"Just like your costume, get over it," I rolled my eyes and turned. "At least it doesn't smell like blood, too."

"Okay, point to Hebi."

—*—*—*—*—*

"So, she had super smell too, huh?" Foggy asked as he pretended to lead Matt, who obviously didn't need to be led but it was good for show. Foggy hadn't said anything while they were still in Matt's apartment, but he hadn't missed their little conversation about smells. "Wait, she can't still hear me can she?"

Matt chuckled at his friend's sudden panic, shaking his head. "No, our abilities aren't exactly the same Foggy. Yeah, she has super smell, but her ears aren't very good. I might get her a hearing aid, actually, if I can trick her into agreeing to it."

"You think she won't?" The blonde asked, eyebrow raised. "I'd think that most people would jump on the chance to improve their senses if they could."

"She's not most people," Matt said, mouth turned down at the corner. "She doesn't seem concerned about the issue at all. Even if hearing aids were free, I still think she'd deny having one. I think she needs glasses too, but I'm not dumb. I might not even have the ability to get her to agree to one of those things, let alone both, and her hearing needs more help than her eyes do."

Foggy sighed, shaking his head. When Matt tilted his head curiously, Foggy rolled his eyes. "Honestly Matt, I'm giving you two months."

"For what?" The redhead asked, not following his friend's path of thought.

"Before you adopt her. Two months."

"I know you heard me when I said I wasn't planning on being a father figure," Matt argued, eyebrows drawn down. "I just wanna help out. Being a guardian is one thing, but adopting her.."

"You will, just watch," Foggy persisted, shaking his head again. "She adorable, obviously has a tragic past, morally ambiguous, and orphaned. If she was ten years older, I'd be worried that you were going to date her. But she isn't, and if there was ever a person that you'd adopt, it's someone exactly like her. I'd bet money on it if I had any to spare."

"You're wrong Foggy," Matt continued. "She probably won't even try to get to know me more than necessary. She isn't the type to get close to people, there's no way she'd let me adopt her even if I wanted to."

"Whatever you say, Murdock. Whatever you say."

—*—*—*—*—*

It was at four thirty that same evening that Matt found himself walking in to the nearest CPS building. He couldn't help but be grateful that Hebi had had his business card still on her, otherwise she probably wouldn't have been able to get ahold of him when she was picked up by CPS. Apparently the teen was smart enough to know that continuing to run from the agency would not help their case for him to become her guardian.

"I thought I said not to go out today," he said in his best Responsible Adult Voice, and was pleased to find that Hebi was apparently also smart enough to know to play along.

"Yeah, but who knows how long these guys are gonna take?" He sensed her turning her head towards the agent in the room, likely glaring at the older woman. "And I wanted a bit of extra money. Not like I could go back to school yet anyway, I don't think I'm even still on the roster."

"Mister Murdock, how do you even know Hebi?" The agent interrupted their little act, and Matt raised an eyebrow. He was hoping Hebi could take over from there, since she was more likely to know what would or wouldn't conflict with her past.

And look (hypothetically) at that, she knew exactly what to do.

"He knew my mom. Family friend, right? But he went off to college so I never thought he'd be able to take care of me. Besides, didn't think I'd ever see him again anyway. Didn't expect him to recognize me when I was out dancing on the street a couple weeks ago, but apparently he heard my voice when I was thanking the crowd and decided to check if it was me. You'd think my voice would sound way too different after five years, but apparently it hasn't changed enough for him to not recognize it."

The agent frowned, raising her eyebrows. "You are okay with going to live with an old family friend you haven't seen in five years?"

"I know him better than I know you or any of your stupid foster families."

Okay, maybe Hebi's attitude couldn't completely be reigned in. Matt sighed, glaring at what he hoped was close enough to her face to be effective.

"Okay," the agent took a breath to keep her composure, but overall seemed unruffled by the barb. "In that case, you won't mind if I ask Mister Murdock some questions about his friendship with your mother in private, would you?"

Matt could feel his heart briefly pick up, his mind working quickly. He'd have to be careful, any misstep and—

"Don't worry. I'll coach you from the hallway," Hebi's surprisingly quiet whisper easily registered in Matt's ear, making one of his patented confident smirks rose onto his lips to mask the more sly one that wanted to be in its place. Well, he definitely chose a smart girl to take into his care if nothing else. Her voice had to be far too quiet for her to even hear herself, which would account for the slight oddities as far as the pitch went, but it showed that she was comfortable with her disabilities and was not afraid to work through them.

Okay, Maybe Foggy was right and they were a little to similar already. But that didn't really make Matt want to back down, it only encouraged him further.

It didn't take long for Hebi to make her way to the hallway, where she continued to whisper under her breath to give Matt all the information he needed to fool the agent.

"So when did you meet Miss Teal?"

"I can't remember exactly when, but I met her when I was still in high school. I liked hearing her sing, as you can probably imagine," a not so subtle nod to his blindness usually succeeded in making whoever was questioning uncomfortable, which held true with the CPS agent, who faltered slightly.

"In the seedy bar she sang in?" Disbelief colored the woman's voice, but Matt just shrugged.

"I'm used to seedy, and it's not like I could really see how bad it was. I'd go maybe once a week, have a soda and just listen. She picked up on it, and after the first time we stumbled into each out on the street it just turned into a casual friendship. I'md come by to visit Hebi every now and then, and Stella would sing every now and then if I was feeling stressed. Music therapy, you know."

"I see," the agent sighed, probably sad that she couldn't refute anything he said. Matt ignored her, patiently latching on to every whispered word drifting from Hebi in the hallway. She was just babbling about anything and everything she could think of about her mother, not being able to listen in to the Agent's questions to give Matt direct answers. It was enough for Matt's own quick brain to supply a story, despite his usual lack of skill when it came to lying.

Oddly enough, he would usually be a stuttering mess if he had to lie about Daredevil. But the fact that he was lying for somebody else's well being made him significantly calmer and the words flow a bit easier.

It helped that Hebi occasionally went on a tangent about possible answers he could give.

"I was in college before she died. I didn't even hear about until months later," Matt was saying, making a silent note to himself to not mention her mother's death to Hebi. He knew how tired he got of people apologizing for his dad's death when they had nothing to apologize for, he knew Hebi would probably appreciate it more if he didn't bring up the topic at all.

The questioning went on for the better part of twenty minutes, and despite a few stumbles Matt was able to get through it. Hebi was still mumbling when the office door opened again and he stepped out with the Agent into the hallway with her. It took a second, but Hebi stopped mumbling when she noticed they were there, and stood up with a surprising amount of hope in her eyes that only the Agent could see— but Matt could still sense her nerves from her heartbeat, and knew she was hoping for the best.

"Alright. Now Mister Murdock, I'll talk to Hebi alone. After that, we'll discuss possible guardianship."

—*—*—*—*—*

"I'm so glad lying was part of assassin 101," I breathed once it was all over and Matt and I were walking back to his apartment at slightly past seven that night. It had taken forever for us to go through all the motions— questioning, background checks, apparently assessment for whether Matt was even qualified to be a guardian, and of course the dreaded paperwork.

Matt chuckled. "Well, _I'm_ glad you took advantage of my hearing to give me the verbal cheat sheet I needed, otherwise we would have been screwed."

"I thought guardians weren't supposed to cuss around kids," I teased him, earning a playful huff and an eye roll I could just barely see through the side opening between his eyes and his glasses.

"You've said worse things than 'screwed' in the past day since I've known you, and I doubt I could get you to stop so there's really no point. Besides, we've only just filed the paperwork. An actual court investigator will give us the same exact treatment in a few days, and then it's the court hearing."

"Which makes me glad that you are a lawyer," I admitted, shaking my head. "No way I'd be able to rest easy until the whole thing was over if you weren't. But you know what you're doing, so I'm not as nervous."

"Let's just get dinner so you can speed your metabolism back up to something normal."

"Shit, I was hoping you'd forget about that," I hissed with a grimace. His answering smirk annoyed me.

"Yeah, you're not going to get away with barely eating just to make it easier on my wallet, kid. The first thing I'm doing as your unofficial guardian is getting you back on a normally sized diet."

I watched my shoes for a while as we walked, but found that I couldn't get rid of the goofy smile on my face even when I tried thinking of dying puppies.

"I think I can live with that."

— ***—*—*—*—***

 **A/N: there we go! Please excuse any spelling errors, this is a first draft and my keyboard on my phone couldn't keep up very well with my typing speed so there are probably mistakes everywhere. I might fix them if I feel up to it later, like I fixed all the mistakes I caught in chapter 1. You're welcome.**

 **Also, I have pretty much no idea how the whole guardianship thing works, so I did five second research and flew by the seat of my pants on the rest. Allow for inaccuracies, thanks. Hope you guys like this!**

 **See you next chapter~**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Yeah, Karen is gonna know about DD, because I said so. We'll just work on the assumption that she recently learned about it and just finished recovering from the shock of the truth and everything like a week or two before the story starts. Kay? Kay.**

— ***—*—*—*—***

The day after the CPS visit was largely uneventful, besides the meeting with the court investigator. By then though, Matt and Hebi had already talked to one another and set their stories in stone so they wouldn't accidentally give each other away. Court date set, they had simply went about the rest of their day as normal. Well not Hebi since she would have normally been busking or hunkered down in an alleyway, but she figured sleeping the day away while basking in the window of Matt's apartment was nice too.

When Matt woke up on the morning of his fourth day knowing Hebi, he instantly went to work on the routine they had already started to hash out. Namely, ignoring that day's unique sleep-pretzel she had somehow curled into in the middle of the night and starting breakfast for her. That morning it was just toasted ham and cheese, but it still did the trick.

He heard her untangling herself as she always did, and laying down flat for a moment. He was starting to realize that that was a habit of hers, laying down flat in the morning for a few seconds before opening her eyes. She probably liked getting a feel for the vibrations around her before actually getting up, it's what Matt would probably do in her situation.

But instead of yawning and joining him at the table after she opened her eyes like she had the previous two mornings, her heart stuttered for a moment. The redhead froze, recognizing her brief panic before her heartbeat slowed down again but remained slightly unsteady.

"Hebi?" He called out slowly, frowning at her odd behavior. He heard her take in a slow breath before sitting up and walking over to him. "You okay?"

"Huh?" He could feel her head raise up in his direction, her voice too tense for somebody who had just woken up. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Uh huh," Matt didn't believe her for a second. "Your heartbeat is still uneven. What's up?"

"Wha— you are way too observant for a guy who spent the past two nights kicking the snot out of thugs until three in the morning," she hedged, reaching out to grab the sandwich he had placed on a plate for her. "When was the court date again?"

Matt sighed, reminding himself that he hadn't even known the girl for a full week yet. He let it go, deciding he could ask Foggy later if something seemed wrong with her. Maybe it was something that required eyes that could actually register light.

"Next Thursday, why?"

"Exactly a week," she mumbled, biting off a huge chunk of her sandwich and chewing slowly. "Nothing, just wanted to know. After that, we have to go to truancy court and see what's gonna happen as far as school goes for me, right?"

"That's the plan, yeah," Matt agreed, turning off the stove and sitting down with his own food. He couldn't help but feel amused by the tortured groan that came from Hebi's throat.

"If I never have to set foot in any court after this ever again, it will be too soon."

"Yeah, fat chance if your guardian is a lawyer," Matt responded ruthlessly. He would have smirked, but the glare he should have felt from her was absent. He couldn't help but furrow his brows—he could feel her muscles contracted into what was probably a scowl, but for some reason it didn't feel like it connected to his face.

"Do you have any extra sunglasses?" She asked suddenly, making Matt pause right after taking a bite of food. He frowned as he chewed and swallowed, wondering what was up with the girl today.

"I think so, but it's not like I have much of a reason to switch between them. I might have a pair that covers a bit more than these round ones do though, why?"

"It's bright out today," which Matt knew was a lie because he could feel the muted heat coming in through the window. It was hot but cloudy. "I was wondering if I could borrow them?"

"I know we agreed that you'd come to the office today to meet Karen and just get out of this apartment for the day, but I really don't think you need sunglasses. You'll be inside with Karen for most of it."

He could feel her heartbeat go slightly uneven again, telling him that she was getting a bit anxious about something. They were interrupted by Foggy's scent coming down the hall.

The moment Hebi smelled him, the teenager stuffed the last of her sandwich in her mouth and ran into the restroom.

Definitely a light-registering issue then, Matt thought. No reason to chat calmly with a guy she knew was an experienced fighter but run away at the appearance of his much more amiable best friend otherwise.

"And good morning!" Foggy was way too happy for such an early hour as he walked through the unlocked door, but he quickly noticed the missing body. "Where's the little ninja girl?"

"Hebi ran into the restroom as soon as we noticed you were down the hallway," Matt informed him, mouth tilted down into a frown. "Her heartbeat's been a bit off all morning, I think she's hiding something from me that I can't see."

"Oh?" Foggy's eyebrows rose. "What is this? Is Foggy Nelson actually necessary for unraveling a mystery for the dreaded Devil of Hell's Kitchen?"

Matt felt a few muscles in his shoulders loosen. Foggy's energy was definitely what he needed, dealing with a kid just wasn't something Matt was used to.

"Yeah Foggy. Let's try to get her to come out and maybe we can figure out what's wrong."

"You mean, maybe _I_ can figure out what's wrong," Foggy corrected with a beaming smile. Matt just grinned, and lifted his head towards the restroom.

"Hebi? I know you're sitting on the ground in there. You're gonna have to come out eventually if you wanna get out for the day and meet Karen."

"On second thought, how about I don't meet her until after the court day? I mean, what if they decide you can't be my guardian? We'll become best friends for nothing!"

"Hebi, CPS is pretty desperate for a way to just get you a place to stay that you won't run away from, they're not likely to turn me down at this point. Now come on, Foggy and I have work to do."

"And best friends? That's the best you could come up with?"

"Not helping, Foggy."

They stood there for a long moment before the door slowly creaked open, and Hebi walked out.

"Okay, even I can tell you're walking backwards," Matt deadpanned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Turn around, Hebi."

The moment she did, Foggy's colorful curse proved Matt right.

"Holy shit! How the hell did that happen overnight?" Foggy seemed so shocked that it put Matt on edge.

"What? What is it?" He asked impatiently.

"Matt, she's blind. Hebi's eyes are milky white right now."

—*—*—*—*—*

The silence from Matt was almost deafening. I could only squirm in front of the both of them uncomfortably, feeling Foggy's gaze heavy on my face and my heat pits able to pick up Matt's sightless one directed not far off from it.

"Is this why you said you'd stay here for nine or ten days max?" Matt's voice was almost too soft for me to hear, and I didn't have my eyesight to follow his lips this time to help me out. I licked my lips, ignoring the shock to my senses that it created when my tongue temporarily blocked out my heat vision.

"Well, yeah," I mumbled, rubbing the back of my neck. "I, Uh, didn't get to cover this part of my abilities with you the other day."

"So this is normal?" I could tell that Matt was raising his eyebrows without even needing to see it, the evidence was all in his voice. "You just, what, wake up every now and then unable to see? You didn't think that was important enough to share? 'Hey, Matt, just so you know, I'm gonna be blind and almost deaf for a few days so don't let me wander out alone to stumble into the guys who are trying to find me,'"

"Oh that's rich," I snapped, scowling. "You're blind and you still go around getting beat up every night in a Halloween costume. I have heat vision too, in case you forgot. I'm just fine. I'm sorry if it felt really awkward and shitty of me to complain to the _permanently blind dude_ that I can't register light for the next week. So what if I'm channeling my inner Hellen Keller for a few days?"

For a long moment, all I could hear was my own annoyed breathing echoing in my ears.

"Yeah, not all my senses are as enhanced as yours," I could tell my voice was low, it echoed in my own internal ears. "And yeah, this is my most vulnerable week of the month. I don't have a staticky picture of the world, I just have my heat vision and my smell to help me out. Maybe the vibrations if I can touch the ground or something. But that's more than enough, I've survived for five years dealing with these weeks."

"It's not that," Matt argues, but his voice seemed strangely beaten. "I know you can take care of yourself. Trust me, I know that being blind doesn't make you weak. But this is still kind of important. If Foggy noticed it right away, how are we going to hide your eyes? And those men, if they see you like this they could send in people you haven't met yet and you might not realize they're hostile until it's too late. They don't need guns to take you down, what if they use something you don't smell in time? Or if they disguise so that the smell isn't out of place?"

I could only lower my head, glaring in the general direction of my feet.

"If I'm gonna keep you safe, I have to know things like this so I can plan out how to work around them," Matt just thundered on, and I knew he was right.

"... We can start with those extra sunglasses of yours?" I pitched in hopefully, feeling a lopsided smile make its way onto my face. He seemed to sense it, my heat pits picking up on the way he relaxed into his seat.

"They're red," Foggy's voice startled me, I had been so worried about Matt that I had forgotten he was there. "Karen's probably gonna take you shopping too, so I'll tell her to get some sunglasses more your style for you if this whole blind thing is gonna be a regular occurrence."

I sighed, knowing I couldn't get them out of shopping for me. But despite the caseload I knew they had now that Fisk was down, I knew they couldn't have a whole bunch of extra money to spend on me. But I also didn't have to pay for food anymore, so my busking money should help out if they insisted on buying stuff for me.

"I have about a hundred and ten dollars from performing earlier this week," I piped up.

"I'm giving Karen money for anything you might need," Matt confirmed my suspicions, but I just shook my head.

"Then I'll save you a hundred bucks. Non negotiable."

I had a feeling he was frowning even if I couldn't sense or see it, but he didn't argue.

"Congratulations, Murdock. You found the one kid in the city just as selflessly stubborn as you. Come on Hebi, I'll show you where his other glasses are."

I let Foggy enter Matt's room first, following his already familiar shape of heat. He was looking through something that was basically a slab of coolness, probably not something used very often. It wasn't very big, so probably just a box.

"Matt doesn't use these very often, but here you go," Foggy said, and I didn't have much time to react as he turned and slid something over my ears. My muscles were tense, fighting the instinct to attack whoever _dared_ touch me without warning, but I knew Matt wouldn't like that. And this was Foggy, even after only knowing him for three days I knew he was pretty harmless.

I rose my hand up, running my fingers along the object to see that it was only a pair of sunglasses. Right. Exactly what we went into the room for in the first place, why would it have been anything else? The lenses were pretty wide, and curved a bit at the side to block as much light as possible without being too clunky or ugly. Obviously meant for someone blind, but if Foggy chose them then they could probably pass for normal sunglasses easily.

"Uh, thanks," I managed, my muscles still locked, and I took two carefully measured steps backward. I didn't generally like being very close to people. For various reasons. "But, uh, a bit of warning next time you're gonna do something like that? I don't like being touched very much, I might hit you if you catch me by surprise."

"Oh!" Foggy seemed to notice that he had just done something fairly distressing for someone who wasn't only blind, but also hard of hearing. Generally touching someone with even one of those issues without warning wasn't advised, which he probably already knew being Matt's friend and business partner but probably hadn't applied to me yet considering I had been able to see just fine the day before. "Sorry. Guess this whole thing, uh, hasn't sunk in quite yet."

I snorted, finding it disturbingly easy to smile around the goofy man. "It's only for the next six days. They should peel off next Thursday morning."

I had a feeling Foggy was making a face, able to sense some of the warmer muscles in his face bunch up but not really giving me much information on the exact face he was making.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say something that sounds really gross and move on to the stuff that would embarrass Matt if I said it in the same room as him."

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure he can hear you," I remarked, eyebrows raised.

"Well yeah," Foggy agreed with a shrug. "But this way he can pretend he _wasn't_ super embarrassed when we go back out. I'm gonna put my hand on your shoulder, okay?"

I nodded, able to relax my muscles for him since I knew what to expect when he reached out to gently lay one hand on my shoulder. And I had to instantly tap down my urge to lean into it, because the air conditioning was on and his hand was pleasantly warm even through the fabric of my shirt.

"I know Matt is a bit overprotective, and he can come off a bit harsh when he's worried like that. But when he says he isn't underestimating you, he means it. He just likes to know everything that can help him feel a bit more capable of keeping his friends safe."

"He's known me for less than a week, I seriously doubt he considers me a friend already. I'm like an abandoned puppy he's nursing back to health—"

"Nuh uh uh," Fogg interrupted, waving a finger in the air. "Matt doesn't do pity. You can be excused for not knowing that yet, but it's really not his thing. He's able to help you, so he's going to. And he might not admit it, but I think he definitely thinks of you as a friend already."

And man, I wished I had more time to let _that_ sink in before Foggy continued, but he didn't seem to notice the emotional turmoil he had subjected me to and just went on talking without pause.

"And honestly, he's probably feeling a bit guilty right now so you should go easy on him."

Wait— what?

"Guilty? What the hell does he have to feel _guilty_ about? I just didn't wanna make things awkward by mentioning my monthly, temporary blindness."

"That's exactly it," Foggy's sigh was heavy enough to barely tickle the tip of my nose, making me blink despite the discomfort it caused my eyes. "It's probably his catholic guilt complex he has going on. But he doesn't have anyone else that understands what it's like, being blind I mean. He's probably secretly a little happy that he has somebody that can relate, and that's making him a bit testy because he doesn't _like_ being happy about it."

Ah. That… strangely made a lot of sense.

I slipped my foot out of my sock, lying it on the ground and tuning into the vibrations running through the apartment. "Tap your foot twice if that's true," I turned my head away from Foggy when I said that so that he knew I wasn't talking to him. I figured asking Matt to his face would be too awkward for the man, and if I asked while in another room then we could both pretend the exchange never happened after I went back into the living room with him. "I'm not gonna be mad if it is, you know. It makes sense. Kinda like feeling relieved when you meet someone else with abilities because you feel like you belong a bit more, right?"

The air was silent for a long moment before I felt two very reluctant taps echo through the ground and onto the skin of my bare foot. I smiled, strangely happy that he was honest with me. I turned to sit on what I suspected was the bed (and my suspicion was confirmed a moment later when it sunk under me slightly) to put my sock back on. As I did, I heard Foggy whistle and my heat pits sensed his head moving side to side as he shook it in what I guessed was disbelief.

"Kid, do you give lessons? Because I've never seen anyone handle Matt that easily before. And I was his roommate back in law school."

I paused with my sock halfway on, finding myself thinking back to the way Matt fought. That night after the CPS visit I had snuck out to watch him, scared that the first person to put this kind of careful effort into me would disappear. I only stayed out for half an hour, only needing to see the way he fought once to understand. The way every hit was efficient and ruthless, measured and professional. The ease that it seemed to come to him to take down multiple people at once.

The way he never seemed to hesitate to pick himself up whenever he was kicked down.

There were many things I didn't understand about Matthew Murdock, but that was not one of them. A person didn't learn to fight like that, or how to keep getting up like that, by living an easy life. They learned that by being knocked down mentally and physically over and over until they built up such a _hatred_ for being knocked down that they couldn't stay on their backs long enough for it to sink in that it had happened again.

"I guess it's easier to know how to treat someone that is as similar to you as he is to me," I muttered, slipping the last of my sock over my heel and standing up. I didn't give Foggy a chance to react to what I had said, turning and walking out of Matt's bedroom almost immediately.

"Okay, you boys have work to do and I apparently have someone new to meet. Fun," I had tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, I really had. But instead I just had something new to add to my list of failures. "Please tell me she doesn't wear heavy perfume."

Matt just chuckled, slinging something over his shoulder that I guessed was his work bag. He grabbed something else, which by the vague shape I got from my heat pits was his walking stick. The thing he didn't actually need.

I was suddenly very glad I invested way more of my busking money than any other homeless person would approve of on thick-soled shoes to muffle the vibrations in the ground, because him using that thing would get annoying fast.

"That's it? All I get is a chuckle?" I pushed, but Matt still didn't respond. "Oh come on, I can't rely on Foggy's word here so you gotta give me something. Don't just leave me hanging here, c'mon!"

—*—*—*—*—*

Oh thank God, it was only floral scented soap and deodorant. I could handle that.

"You must be Hebi! Matt and Foggy told me about you," the voice that greeted me was pleasant, and very typical of a voice for a secretary but that was neither here nor there. I could sense her hand held out for a shake, and easily met it with my own before Matt or Foggy could comment.

"You're Karen, right?" I responded as kindly as I could. I was currently blind and that woman was taking me shopping for clothes and other things, I had rather not piss her off and end up with an ugly neon wardrobe. Matt wouldn't be able to notice and warn me before I put any of it on, either.

"Yep. And the boys told me I was in charge of taking you on a girl's day today," I turned my head towards the limo of heat that was Matt, hoping he had _not_ actually phrased it like that. His pointed lack of reaction did not encourage me. "Don't worry, they told me about the situation."

"New development, actually," Matt spoke up, probably still a bit annoyed at my lack of warning when it came to the whole sight issue. I sighed, already expecting it when he reached out to tug off the glasses that sat firmly on my nose.

Karen's gasp was not surprising either, but the speed at which she calmed down _was._ She groaned a little, and I could sense some of her muscles twisting in her face area. Again my heat vision couldn't really give me an accurate picture of the exact face she made, but it was probably a frown or scowl.

"Now I have two blind trouble makers to watch after. How did this happen in just a day or two, anyway?"

"It's regular," I answered for the lawyers. "For one week every month, my eyes are like this. It peels off on the seventh day."

Foggy's accompanying disgusted gag was studiously ignored by the rest of us.

"Peels?" Karen asked, tilting her head. "Matt told me that all of your… abilities are snake-like, even if he didn't tell me exactly what hose abilities are. So, I did some research last night out of curiosity."

Oh boy.

"Apparently when snakes shed, they produce an eye cap over their eye that comes off along with the rest of their shed skin. Is this," I registered a vague wave of her hands in my direction, "Related to that?"

"Thankfully I don't shed my whole skin, that would be gross," I wrinkled my nose. "But yeah, this is my version of a shed cycle. But the only scales I have are the translucent ones over my eyes, so it's really only a drawback. _Some_ of us don't have completely beneficial mutations."

Matt snorted. "Okay, you know just as well as I do that having senses elevated to this degree isn't _completely_ beneficial."

"True enough," I conceded.

"Is it just me, or is it still a bit surreal to just be casually having a conversation like this?" Karen asked Foggy, who I could sense rub his forehead.

"Nope. Definitely not just you."

It wasn't long before Matt and Foggy had to go off to do adult lawyer stuff, leaving me alone with Karen in the office. Considering the fact that we had only just been introduced, we just sat awkwardly silent as Karen did some paperwork and I tried to identify every chemical in her body wash to distract myself.

"So, uh. Foggy told me you were trained as an assassin."

Yes, because that's amazing conversation material. I sighed, figuring she was probably just awkward because she had no idea how to start a conversation with me. Still, that was a pretty horrible attempt.

"I try not to think about it."

"Well, _yeah,_ I can't imagine it's exactly fun. But, you obviously know how to fight because of it, right?"

I tilted my head, wondering what she actually wanted to know. "That is definitely something they teach in the two-year intensive training course, yeah. I learned a bit extra after I escaped from a makeshift teacher here and there. Nobody that I got to know well enough to tell all of my abilities, but saving a person's life or helping them out with a job tends to earn a week or two of lessons. Why?"

"Oh, uh. Before Fisk was taken down, I… I had a bit of an issue with a guy thinking I knew too much about his operation—"

"Did you kill him?"

That caught Karen off guard, and I could feel the heat in her face slightly drop because of the blood draining from it. Her breath stuttered, which I could easily catch by the scent of it becoming irregular.

"What kind of question is that?" She asked weakly. I frowned, leaning forward.

"If someone ever thinks you know too much about something illegal, they're not gonna just back off even if their boss is locked up. You usually have to kill them to keep yourself safe."

"That's— Okay, never say that to Matt. He would never approve, and quite frankly I'm extremely concerned about what would make a fifteen year old say something like that so easily," that didn't surprise me. "And— and no. That's not the point of me bringing it up, I just wanted to ask if you'd be okay giving me a few tips as far as self defense, so that I might have a bit more of a fighting chance if someone tries to catch me off guard again."

Yeah, maybe she shouldn't try to lie to someone who was trained in lying. But I let it drop, Matt probably wouldn't like it if I traumatized his friend with talk about death and killing. I was trying to leave that behind me anyway, so the sooner we changed the subject the better for the both of us.

Apparently Karen misinterpreted my silence, and decided to continue rambling.

"Well, I would ask Matt but he's a bit… intense, you know? And I ignored him for a solid week after I found out about the whole daredevil thing, so it's kind of unfair for me to ask him to do something like that when—"

"You honestly think I'd be any less intense?" I interrupted, brows furrowed. "And I know a few self defense tricks, but most of my training was more of the overpower-and-kill-ASAP kind, and not the disarm-and-run kind. But I guess a fight-for-your-life angle wouldn't be completely out of the ballpark for you to try out," I tilted my head and thought over all the different types of fighting I had been force fed. Most would require more time and effort to teach her in a normal fashion than what she would probably be willing to take.

"I'd be up for learning whatever tricks you can teach," she eagerly spoke up. "I don't need to be a prize fighter or anything, but I'll take anything I can get that might help me out of a tough situation."

"That seems easy enough," I agreed with a shrug. Her following clap, though not particularly loud, startled me.

"Great! Now, we've spent enough time in this musty office. Let's go out on that girl's day."

"... do we have to?"

—*—*—*—*—*

"You bought tea?" Matt asked the following morning, when he opened up the cabinets to find unopened packages he hadn't bother to decipher the muted smell of yet. It was really good quality stuff too, loose-leaf and whole herbs.

"I would prefer to make my own blends, but those smelled really good and I wanted to try them out," Hebi explained as she walked over to take her usual morning seat at the counter. She opened her mouth to take in the scent of each of the three bags Matt had discovered. "I got a teapot too. With my performance money, of course. Can I try the one with lavender today?"

Matt chuckled, glad to have one pretty normal thing about Hebi to add to his surprisingly short list of knowledge about her. She really liked tea. He had assumed from the way that she always seemed to smell vaguely like some type of it or another, but the confirmation was nice. He handed her the bag that held the tea she had asked for, putting the other two away.

He hated to admit it, but it was oddly nice having a normal interaction like that with somebody he knew was currently blind just like him. It was like Hebi had said the day before, it just gave him an odd sense of belonging that he couldn't shake no matter how bad he felt for it. It had been the same way back with Stick, which he had originally blamed on his young age and the fact that he had still been adjusting to his situation. But there he was as a full grown adult and feeling that same thing all over again, this time with somebody that was obviously not a gigantic asshole like Stick.

At least, not from what he had observed so far.

"You make your own tea blends often?" He decided to ask, popping toast in the toaster and setting eggs to fry on the stove.

"I try. Usually by picking from rooftop gardens or forking over a dollar for a cheap box of tea or two at the dollar store. When I first escaped, I was always so… scared of everything. Scared that they'd drag me back," Matt listened even as he felt Hebi take down the teapot she had bought the day before and fill it with water. They just shared the kitchen for a moment in silence, Matt scooting over when Hebi needed space to set her teapot over a burner to start heating up.

"But my mom, on some of her better days she'd make chamomile tea in the mornings. Or mint tea loaded with sugar whenever she felt a sore throat coming on," Matt sensed Hebi shrug as she pulled out a measuring spoon and measured out a serving of the tea into what he guessed was a reusable tea bag. "So, one day I was just walking by a cafe and the old lady that ran it decided I could use some old fashioned tea to improve my health," it wasn't hard for the redhead to hear the nostalgic grin in Hebi's voice. "It calmed me down. After that, I just started drinking at least a cup a day to get my nerves under control. It's better than alcohol, anyway," her voice grew bitter at the end of that sentence, but Matt ignored it. Part of the information she had mumbled to him during that day at the CPS office was about her mother having died from alcohol poisoning. She had drank herself to death. "It just became a habit after a few weeks, and now I love making my own blends and trying new flavors. It's fun."

"Well, it sounds better than soda at least. Do you have an extra tea bag? It did smell pretty good."

If Matt could sense the way Hebi's face was lifted up into a wide smile, he didn't comment on it.

They really only got to have quiet time like this in the mornings before Matt had to go to work. Even after work he usually didn't spend up time checking up on Hebi before heading out as Daredevil. They had dinner together, but that wasn't really the same. Matt figured she needed her space, but it was probably about time he figured out what she liked to do. It was almost summer so she couldn't go back to school right away, meaning it would be best if she had something to do during the day when he couldn't be there to keep her company.

And, as he had just realized, he didn't know all that much about her.

"So," Matt decided to speak up after they had their tea and their eggs with toast on plates and ready to eat. "Let's talk about more normal stuff like that. Let's forget about assassins and thugs with guns and Daredevil for now. For example, what do you wanna do when you finish school?"

Hebi almost seemed to deflate, which was not the reaction Matt had wanted or expected. "I don't know. I don't exactly have the best college resume right now, Matt," he could sense her reaching for her mug of tea, cradling it in her hands as in siphoning comfort from it. "I mean, what _can_ I do? I guess opening up a cafe or a bakery would be nice, but it just," she sighed and sipped from her mug. "It's probably all I can hope for though."

"I don't think that's what I asked," Matt said firmly but gently, frowning in her direction despite knowing she couldn't see it just then. "Don't worry about your record right now, you're still young. You can fix that. But let's start smaller then; what's your favorite subject?"

"Biology," Hebi instantly answered. "Botany is cool too. I'd probably try to become an herbalist so I can make and sell teas, but just as a hobby you know? But biology, zoology? That's so interesting to me. Chemistry," Matt couldn't help but feel relieved at how light and happy her voice sounded. "And obviously I'm a good example of the fact that animal DNA can be compatible with that of humans. Maybe even that Spiderman guy that stays around Queens. That scientist who went crazy not that long ago, Doctor Connors? I kinda like the idea he had, though obviously he took it way too far. Animals have so many different adaptations to survive, if science can harness a few of those to temporarily transfer to humans— the impact it could have!" Hebi seemed to have entirely forgotten about her breakfast, a bit of her tea spilling onto her hand when she started waving them in excitement. She hissed at the heat on her skin, setting down her mug and grabbing a napkin.

"So you're a secret science nerd," Matt summed up, grinning. He had managed to finish pretty much all of his food while he had been talking, but he didn't mind. It felt like he was slowly gathering enough information to fill in the outline of the person that was Hebi Teal. "You know, going into biochemistry or something like that is a pretty good dream."

Hebi's head raised in his direction, and she took her first bite of her food.

"You think so?" Her voice was almost painfully vulnerable when she spoke after swallowing. Matt nodded.

"Yeah. And depending on how you do on your placement tests we can see about getting you into a school with a good science program. I can't really afford anything private, but there are plenty of public schools we can look at. It doesn't matter if it's a little far, we can figure out transportation. Maybe Karen can drive you in the mornings if we need her to."

Matt had a feeling that Hebi's eyes would be heavy on his face if she had been able to see him right then.

"I'd like that."

—*—*—*—*—*

The guardianship hearing went smoothly. CPS really just wanted Hebi out of the system, and the investigator had had nothing negative to report besides the fact that Matt only had a couch for Hebi to sleep on. Considering her previous accommodations though, it wasn't hard for her and Matt to argue that it was a definite step up. After all, the court knew from experience that Hebi would run from even the more lavish foster homes they tried to chuck her in— if she was willing to stay on the couch of a one-bedroom apartment then fine with them.

The truancy court a couple weeks later and following tests went even better. As Matt had suspected, homelessness was something that could be excused and remedied. And Hebi's scores had come back even better than expected.

Apparently, Hebi had informed Matt that night, she liked to read scientific journals and work on her math in the library whenever she could go. She was not only exactly where she needed to be for her age, but she was even slightly advanced. Not enough to bring up the question of grade-skipping, but definitely enough to make a difference. Matt had Foggy help him go over the websites and pamphlets for several science-oriented public schools the day after the results were given back to them.

So, a month and a half into Matt and Hebi knowing each other and everything seemed fine. Matt was going to have Hebi have the final choice of schools she wanted to apply to (the better ones all had tests required for entry), and the gunmen hadn't been seen again. Hebi would go to the library while Matt was working, they'd occasionally visit the gym together on sundays when Matt wasn't making his own visit to the church. Hebi would occasionally wake up at three or four in the morning to patch up and scold Matt. It worked. It was nice.

Obviously it wouldn't last.

— ***—*—*—*—***

 **These three chapters have all ended up almost the same length— like, less than a hundred word difference— and it is kind of spooking me. Not purposeful at all, I just get to a point where I think is a good ending and check the word count and, yeah, almost the same number has greeted me each time for these three chapters.**

 **Please review! I appreciate constructive criticism, no matter how self indulgent this is. Plus I just wanna know if anybody even likes this :/ I might just be impatient though because this story has only even been up for three days (yes, I wrote a chapter a day. I upload every chapter the same day I finish their first draft, which is why there are mistakes) so I guess not that many people have even found this and read it yet, but I can dream. Anyway, thanks for reading!**

 **See you next chapter~**


	4. Chapter 4

**Trigger warning. Once things start heating up, tread with caution if you get triggered easily, especially by self-hate related topics.**

—*—*—*—*—*

Figuring out what to do to try and make my burden on Matt's wallet a bit easier was not all that difficult. After all, performing in the streets was actually acceptable once summer break rolled around, and even the extra fifty-odd dollars every couple of days (give or take, depending on good or bad days) helped a lot. In fact, it helped enough for me to squirrel some away for myself.

"Are you just going to start filling the house with herbs?" Matt asked as he walked in on a particularly big spending spree of mine. Tubs of different herbs were laid out on the counter as I carefully started organizing them into the cabinet space.

Upon hearing his voice I instantly froze, my fingertips just barely touching the edge of the latest airtight container I had been stacking in a cabinet.

"Uh, I made sure to get the super airtight tubs so that the smell won't bother you too much," was the first thing I could say. Sure, we had successfully lived together for over a month. That didn't mean I I wasn't still afraid that I'd wake up one day and my novelty would be worn out, resulting in my blind savior kicking me out and leaving me to the dogs.

Okay, logically I knew by then that Matt was way too illogically nice of a person to actually do that. But irrational fears were irrational for a reason.

Matt's chuckle instantly had me relaxing.

"Calm down, I'm not upset about it. You're the only person who can make me tea without making me secretly disgusted at tasting the soap that was on your hands or the metal of the teapot," Matt's calm voice was becoming more and more of a crutch for me. Usually all I had was my tea to calm me down in the throes of the embarrassingly frequent panic attacks I had, but lately I had found that Matt's gentle assurances tended to tap out those attacks before they could truly take off. Not all of them of course, but I had been able to keep the worse ones at bay until he was too far away to tune into them.

"I was thinking about finally selling tea blends online," I admitted, continuing to stack the containers up.

"You're fifteen," Matt reminded me, one eyebrow raised. It was around our usual dinner time, so he loosened his tie as he made his way to his bedroom to get a more comfortable shirt on for the hour or so that he'd hang out with me before heading out as Daredevil.

"Yeah, but if I do it through Etsy or something then it is totally fine," I squinted down at my container of rose hips, wondering if I should short them under 'r' or 'h', and flicked my eyes over to the containers of rose petals and buds with similar mental debates. "I might wait a couple weeks though, so I can afford containers and shipping stuff."

"You know, you don't have to worry about money. That's my job," Matt said when he came out of his room in a plain blue t-shirt and his work slacks that he hadn't bothered to change out of. "You don't even have to go out busking every day like you insist on—"

"I might try Central Park next week. Maybe switching it up to hip hop will get better tips from the tourists," The competition didn't really bother me, because I could always attract a good crowd if I pushed my abilities a bit without actually doing anything inhuman. Matt just sighed, shaking his head.

"Just be careful. Those guys are still out there and having you going out to Central Park and Times Square to purposely gather a crowd makes me paranoid. Where do you wanna go for dinner?"

The last of my herbs put away, I turned and ran a hand through my short hair. It was getting a bit long, I liked keeping it in an asymmetrical pixie because it looked good with my jet black hair and kept it from easily being caught and used as a hold by anyone I might have had to fight.

"They won't attack me in broad daylight," I knew how light of an argument that was though, and continued; "besides, I'm good at running. I can drag them into an alleyway and beat 'em up before making my escape. The good old 'lure and pick off' tactic always works wonders."

"We've been over this, Hebi," Matt said, just as he always did when that conversation came up. "Just because you _can_ doesn't mean you should have to. You're fifteen, you should enjoy the last few years of childhood you have instead of wondering if you're gonna have to fight for your life today or not."

But Matt just didn't _understand._ I'd never been fifteen, not really, not where it counted. And I understood what he meant, but I couldn't just go back to being a normal teenager— there was nothing there to go _back_ to. I had never gotten the chance to be a normal teenager, I wouldn't know where to start.

"That Thai place you took us a couple weeks ago sounds good," I decided to hedge, knowing we could argue for hours about the subject if we let it go on that long without a topic change. I saw Matt run a hand through his own hair in frustration, but he let the topic go like he always did when I decided to hedge around something. He grabbed his keys and led the way to the door.

"Okay, then let's go."

—*—*—*—*—*

In hindsight, Matt should have seen it coming. That man was always either present during or the cause of something horribly going wrong whenever he showed up. Dinner with Hebi, while slightly tense, went by as uneventful as it usually did. But when Hebi paused at the entrance to their building, Matt knew something was wrong. It only took a small sniff and an adjustment to how much he was tuning in around them to realize what that was.

"Someone's in our apartment," Hebi whispered, which Matt could only nod to.

"He can hear you. Stay behind me, try not to say anything, and don't let anything he says provoke you."

"Who is he?" Hebi wondered, falling obediently behind Matt as they made their way inside. Matt felt his lips turn down.

"Probably the biggest asshole I've ever met. And I fought Wilson Fisk."

Hebi didn't shiver like most people would have at an implication like that, but she was definitely not pleased in the tensing of her muscles was anything to go by. Then again, she might have just been tuning into the way his own were unpleasantly tensed.

The moment they walked in, the intruder decided to speak up.

"What is this pansy crap? It smells like a damn garden in here," was what they were greeted with as they made their way deeper into the darkened apartment. "You have piss-poor choice in students, by the way."

"Why the hell are you here, Stick?" Matt bit out, hands curling into fists and uncurling again by his sides, over and over again. The old man closed the cabinet he had been looking through, which happened to be the one that held all of Hebi's new herbs. "And Hebi isn't my student. She's my ward."

"Then you're even dumber than I already knew you were," the harsh comeback was instant. "I was coming down here to ask for help with something, but the moment I smelled her all over that gym of yours I changed my mind. Finished my job early so I could come here and tell you to get rid of her before your soft heart gets you killed."

"Hebi is not going to kill me, Stick—"

"Do you even know what Hebi means, idiot? It's Japanese for _snake._ It's exactly what she is," the old man stepped closer to them, glaring sightlessly in Matt's direction. "Her father chose her mom on purpose, he wanted a kid to be raised as the perfect weapon. Waited 'till the woman finally killed herself so he could take the child and make a weapon," Matt could hear Hebi's breath catch, and a familiar emotion flared to life in him. It burned him, inside out. The Devil in him wanting to come out and beat the life out of anyone who hurt Hebi. But Stick didn't stop.

" _That's_ what she is. She's more animal than human now, and you know why? She can do what you _never could,"_ Stick got within strike range, and it took Matt everything he had to not let this shitshow devolve into a fist fight. Hebi didn't need to see more violence. "She can detach herself. Kill her father without a blink, kill the scientists that had tricked her into getting close to them. She only cares about herself, if you think for one second she'll care if you die protecting her because you are still in that little fantasy world where you think you're some hero? You'll just end up watching her back as she abandons you, or as she slides the blade across your neck herself."

Hebi was hyperventilating by then, which was the only tether keeping Matt from trying to break Stick's nose.

"Stop talking, Stick," Matt growled, fists no longer uncurling from fists.

"That church you go to has taught you about demons, right? I thought you'd know better than to let one in your house."

That was the last thing Matt could take, the familiar rage in him boiling over as he stepped forward and swung at his old mentor. The man raised his staff to block the blow, easily swinging to the side and landing a rough smack with the weapon against Matt's ribs. The lawyer barely had time to register Stick's sudden movement before the old man was sliding the staff open to reveal the katana it really was.

"STICK!" Matt's bellow startled Hebi out of the frozen state she had been rendered into, her eyes having been stuck on the metal of the weapon swinging towards her. But his voice seemed to have made Hebi wake up from her fear-induced stillness just in time for the girl to dodge the blow. The blade stuck in the floor long enough to Matt to engage Stick again, keeping the geezer's focus off of Matt's ward.

The primal thud of wood against flesh and flesh against flesh echoed in the apartment as Matt drive himself as hard as he could to keep Stick away from the teenager. A particularly hard kick to the chest sent Matt flying back into his bedroom door, where his gasp of pain alerted him to something new—

He could smell fresh air entering the room from the window.

The window was open.

 _Hebi. Where was Hebi?_

"Took you long enough to notice," Stick's gravelly voice drifted over as Matt pulled himself up. "She took off about a minute ago. Which is good, because it'll be easier to kill her when she's tired from running."

"You're not going to kill her. You aren't even going to go anywhere _near_ her, do you understand me?" Matt stalked towards the old man as he grit each word out in his Daredevil voice, panic mixing with fury to the point that his head was almost overwhelmed. A sensory overload would have been easier on his heart. He didn't even realize he was already on the border of one, everything filtering in in a sharp panic-induced clarity he normally wouldn't have allowed. But Hebi was gone, Hebi was gone and she had people after her and Matt needed to find her before she got herself killed.

Stick was not intimidated, he just stood with his usual calm and scoffed. "Go change into your pajamas, boy. We'll just have to see who can reach her first."

"I _told you_ , you are not going to—"

"You can say whatever you want Matty, but it won't change the fact that she's just your tombstone waiting to be carved. Snakes are opportunists, and she's no different. You offer her food, shelter, safety, she's going to take it. But the second there's trouble, the second something goes wrong, and there will be her hands around your throat and you won't be able to get them off."

Matt took a breath, trying to cool his anger down. Getting worked up wouldn't help the situation, and Hebi was only getting farther away the longer he waited.

So he didn't. He ran into his room and changed as quickly into his costume as he physically could.

—*—*—*—*—*

Hebi panted, the scent of blood thick on her tongue. She hadn't wanted to fight, she hadn't. She just wanted to get out of Matt's apartment, to _run. Run from there as fast and far as she could._ It wasn't safe for her to stay near Matt. It wasn't safe.

But gunmen had started trickling out of alleyways the farther she got, and it had gotten so hard for her to fight the increasing numbers that she did what she had sworn she wouldn't do.

The blood was thick in the air as she stared at the waist of the man below her, whose torso was unnaturally wrinkled inwards, bulletproof vest and all. Blood trickled from his mouth.

The man would not be getting up. Not with his torso mimicking a crushed soda can.

Five more alive but knocked out bodies littered alleyways behind Hebi, marking her path like the breadcrumbs in a very morbid version of Hansel and Gretel.

The girl's head swung up, her heat pits supplying her with a mental image of five more walls of human heat heading her way. Not about to double back and end up running into Matt, who she was positive was going to come after her, she found she had no way to dodge them. Two came by the rooftops, three more down all of the separate alleyways immediately available for her to take.

Normally she would run down one path and try to engage the men one at a time, like she had been trained, but her panic overrode her teachings. She wasn't even completely lucid, the slit pupils in her eyes advertising to anyone that could see that a human was not currently in charge of her body.

When the men rounded their respective corners, Hebi was crouched behind a dumpster with her teeth bared and muscled tensed Incase they could find her. But their goggles must have been heat vision, because they instantly circled towards her hiding spot.

The first man, not cautious enough, was met with too-fluid limbs instantly twisted around him like fleshy ropes. Inhumanly dense muscle constricted all at once, sending the sound of snapping bones echoing across the brick walls surrounding them. The neck, upper chest, and waist of the man were half as thick as they should have been when Hebi's body slid off of him, crumpled inwards like cheap aluminum. Gunshots rang out, bouncing off brick and concrete and the metal dumpster walls as Hebi darted and crawled from spot to spot, trying to find someplace the men couldn't reach without any luck.

A lucky bullet struck her right below her left rib cage, making a feral hiss erupt from her throat. She landed on the nasty concrete ground in a writhing mass of pained flesh, blood pooling under her as she tried to curl up as tightly as she could, her human mind only further receding into the depths of her brain with the new agony tearing through her.

The dusty darkness of Hell's Kitchen finished gulping Hebi up as one of the four remaining men slid something out of his pocket and jabbed it into the prone girl's back, right along her exposed spine.

When Matt reached the scene ten minutes later, it was as if the pool of Hebi's blood was all he could smell. He could hear his heart speeding in his best far faster than what could have possibly been healthy, but the smell of her blood muffled it. He could sense the unnatural markings on the dead bodies that could not have possibly be done by normal human hands, he could dimly connect that only Hebi could have possibly caused it since her scent coated both bodies over each crumpled area. But her blood filling every hypersensitive scent receptor in his nose seemed to make those discoveries unimportant, made him _ache_ with failure and panic and something tight in his chest that he couldn't identify through the fog that _her blood, her blood, her blood_ erected in his head.

"She's not dead yet," the last voice Matt wanted to hear made Matt's head slowly raise towards Stick's position casually sitting on the lip of one building bordering the alley. "And you're not gonna break her out of where they took her on your own."

A snarl ripped itself from Matt's throat. He didn't even notice how his teeth were bared like a wolf, not able to deal with Stick's shit in his current state.

"So, what, you just decide to go from wanting to kill her to offering me help to rescue her? What the hell do you want, Stick? This doesn't fucking concern you!"

"Sure it does. She's even more dangerous in the hands of those men than she is on her own. I wanted to kill her before they got to her, but obviously that didn't happen."

"Hebi's stronger than that," Matt argued, fists shaking by his sides with how tightly he was clenching them shut. Stick's scoff didn't help.

"You've known her for, what? A month?" The geezer slid from his perch, landing on the ground with a blind glare of contempt towards Matt. "I bet there's a _world_ of time to get to know her when you work all day and play hero all night, isn't there?"

And there, guilt was added to the stew of painful emotions brewing inside Matt's chest. Stick, as much as it pissed him off, actually had a point. Matt only interacted with Hebi or maybe an hour or hour and a half total every day, maybe longer on Sundays if they went to the gym to train together. But he still hadn't pushed her for any information—they just coexisted most of the time. Friendly conversations about nothing, never talking about anything of any real weight. Matt's only knowledge of her past was whatever she mumbled about her mom and the very bare-minimum story about her assassin training that she had mentioned once and never tried to elaborate on. He knew she liked tea and that she liked science, but he had no idea what her favorite color was or her favorite foods. He had no idea what it was like to go blind periodically, the kind of fear she must feel wondering if her shed cycle would come early or late. He didn't know about the hopelessness of knowing that she would open her eyes and have to live with the darkness Matt was all too familiar with every month like unavoidable clockwork.

How could he have just ignored the fact that she was clearly not mentally stable? Nobody who had to go through even the small bit that Matt knew about could walk away without issues. But Matt hadn't done anything to help, content with their comfortable talk of normal things and the fact that she didn't seem bothered about his Daredevil life like his friends were.

And yeah, if he was able to save her then the first thing he was going to do was try his hardest to change the way they had been living. Hebi needed help, not just someone to protect her physically or financially. She didn't need a distant friend. As much as it terrified the shit out of him, Matt realized right then that Hebi needed a parental figure. She needed someone who would listen to her baggage and maybe even meet it equally. She needed Matthew Murdock just as much as she needed Daredevil.

"Well, if you think she's so weak," Matt's voice was lower and calmer after making those silent decisions. "Then let's track her down before she breaks. And maybe, if we're lucky, I'll get to see her prove you wrong for a change."

Stick just snorted, disbelieving, but took off right next to Matt as they tracked Hebi's scent trail.

It took longer than Matt would have liked, but the men had obviously used a van to transport her so the two men on her feet would obviously fall behind in terms of speed. Every minute grated on his nerves like cheap cotton, but all he could do was continue to travel over the rooftops with one of his least favorite people slightly behind him.

"You don't even know what they did to her, do you?" The previously mentioned asshole spoke up. Matt clenched his jaw, desperately wanting the other man to shut up because he was _not_ in the mood for any kind of conversation let alone one that involved Stick of all people.

"I was giving her her space. She'll tell me when she wants to."

Stick scoffed for the third time in the past hour. "You'll be waiting forever if you stick with that. You know there are a couple groups taking in individuals and trying to forcibly get them to mutate? Guys torture people for hours after injecting them with a chemical meant to awaken any hidden X-gene in their DNA after extreme stress so that they can sell the awakened subjects as super-slaves."

Matt felt the previously fought-down panic rise again, his chest tightening. If his pace picked up l, Stick didn't mention it.

"Is that what was done to her?" Matt couldn't help but ask. He'd apologize to Hebi for the prying once he got her back home safely.

"Close. This group are basically copycats, trying to be innovative. Same basic idea, different tactics. They take kids with no family and a mixture of that chemical, animal genes stolen from Oscorp, and radiation to see if they can engineer more specific powers out of the kids. Not much less painful than the other method, and apparently the success rate is abysmal. That brat you decided to take pity on is the only success from this group that I've been able to find."

Matt had to force himself to swallow. "The other kids?"

"What do you think? Dead."

Yeah, Matt had suspected as much. Hebi hadn't been lying about having enough baggage to make the airport jealous, how many of those kids had she befriended before they died? How closed off had she had to become to stave off the pain? And, if Stick's speech from earlier could be trusted (which it usually could, no matter how much Matt Hayes to admit it), then she had been subjected to all of that by her father and strangers pretending to be friends.

And she and Matt's relationship had escalated from strangers to guardian and ward pretty damn quickly. How had she been able to trust him so quickly?

Maybe she didn't.

And that thought hurt almost as much as smelling a puddle of her blood in the middle of an alleyway surrounded by bullet holes and beat up mercenaries.

Two painful hours later, both mentally and physically, Matt was able to sense the building where Hebi's scent trail led.

But apparently the mental stress wasn't at an end, because he could tell she had apparently just woken up.

Her scream echoed, filled with tortured despair and frustration. Like someone who woke up to find that their reality was only a dream, and their nightmare had never ended.

The building was, perhaps stereotypically, a warehouse out in a part of town that was only regularly visited at night by men who wouldn't bat an eye at the torture likely going on behind those bars. Who did things likely similar to it themselves.

Matt was suddenly glad his outfit was much more durable than his black protype from before Fisk's takedown, otherwise his nails would have torn into the skin around his knees and added his blood into the maze of scents to sort through. Stick wasn't nearly as concerned, casually leaning several feet away where he could peek around the side of the warehouse for any possible guards. They had both been running nonstop for longer than even they could go without a rest. As much as Matt hated it, they had to catch their breaths before starting their fight.

The relief Matt felt at Hebi finally being back in range was overshadowed by the despair and horror he felt as he was forced to listen to her voice from inside the warehouse.

"FUCK OFF!" Her voice screeched inside those walls, more desperate and hysterical than he had ever heard from her. He could hear her voice starting to get strained from the amount of screaming she was torturing her throat with. "LET ME GO! BACK OFF! GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY GO AWAY!" Metal clinking rapidly made its way to Matt's ears, along with the vague shape of metal restraints around the smear of heat that he registered as being Hebi.

They had her chained like an animal.

Her panicked heartbeat drilled ice through Matt's chest, and he couldn't wait any longer. Despite Stick's insults following behind him, he jumped down and burst in the building without care. He didn't have time to be careful, _his kid needed him!_

Matt slammed his fist straight into the nose of the first unlucky asshole he came across, grabbing his back collar to slam his body with as much force as possible into the next idiot to get in his way. Blood sprayed into the air, Daredevil no longer able to hold back his rage as he broke noses and arms and slammed heads into metal doors. Because that's who he was now— the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Matthew Murdock was consumed for the moment.

At one point a scientist tried to stab his with a scalpel. When the object only lodged in Daredevil's reinforced suit without actually hitting skin, the vigilante grabbed the man by the neck and threw him into the wall. After getting rid of the scalpel he realized that the man he had just thrown could have been one of the men to torture, to _experiment_ on Hebi. And that was enough to justify the man punching the scientist until both of his eyes were swollen shut, his lip busted in several places and his nose crooked. Only Hebi's continued whimpers and pleas to be released got him off that guy and back to tracking her scent to the room of portable walls it was hidden behind.

Patience nonexistent, Daredevil kicked the wall down after sending that it wouldn't land on his kid if he did so. Ignoring the men that where squished under the thin slab, he walked over it to the metal table that Hebi was strapped to with thick metal slabs and chains.

Feeling it so closely was even worse than it had been before.

"Why? Why? Why?" Hebi's cries made their way out of a sore throat, coming out more as croaks than anything else. Delivering a ruthless punch right into the throat of the scientist by her side, he made sure nobody else was coming before turning to Hebi.

"Shh. Hebi, it's me. It's Matt, calm down. I'm gonna get you home," he did his best to sound non threatening and kept his voice as soft as he could, but the anger he hadn't quite gotten it of his system still kept a rumble in his voice that seemed to do nothing for the teenager's nerves.

"Why? Why? Why?" She continued to squeak, and Matt could smell the salty trails her tears tracked down her face. The heat around her face suggested that it was heavily flushed with a mixture of her crying, panic, and the effort it had taken for her to scream her throat sore.

Matt continued to try to get to her, but she didn't even open her eyes. She just continued to mutter the word why over and over again in such a tortured voice that Matt thought his teeth would crack with the force he was clenching his jaw shut with. Even worse, it seemed to get progressively more resigned with each _why_ that forced itself from her mouth.

"Oh don't worry, you can let your guard down. I got all the assassins who were planning on resuming her training that you didn't take into account before you stormed in like an idiot."

"Not now, Stick," Matt growled, shoving the keys he had managed to find off one of the scientists he had knocked out into the locks on Hebi's restraints. Once they all popped open, Matt wasted no time gently scooping the girl into his arms. She balled up into a tighter knot than he would have previously thought possible, reminding him of a terrified ball python. Her muttering had changed, but was no less heart breaking.

"No, no, no, please. Don't take me back. No. Kill me, kill me, kill me."

Matt's grip on her tightened as he took a painful breath through his nose in shock at her words.

"Guess you were right, Matty. She proved me wrong," Stick's irritating voice chimed in. "She's just as dumb as you are."

Matt wouldn't know exactly what he meant until he got back to his apartment with Hebi.

—*—*—*—*—*

Every breath felt like an icicle ramming itself down my throat. It was so cold, but I didn't want to lean into the warmth that was carrying me either. It was so comfortable, so tempting, but I couldn't lean into it. Cold was good. I deserved cold. Warmth was more dangerous.

"We're here," that voice was no longer dark and gravelly like it had been before. It was soft and calming again, the same voice that always made my muscles relax.

But it just made me tense up further.

Carefully, Matt removed one arm from where it was supporting the coil I was wound into in order to open the window to his apartment. For a terrifying moment I was pressed tightly against his chest as he tried to balance my weight with one arm as he did the simple action, and it took everything I had not to relax into it. Once it was open he went back to holding me with both arms, stepping inside while cradling me as if he was afraid I was going to shatter if he dropped or bumped me.

"I'm going to set you down on the couch okay? And then I'm going to close the window. You're okay. Stick left. That bastard isn't anywhere near here anymore, you're okay. You're safe."

Sure enough, I felt my altitude change and be replaced with leather as I was placed down onto his sofa. I lifted my head from the center of my coil, opening my mouth to track him by his body heat as he walked softly to close the window just like he said. My eyes absorbed whatever UV they could and were just able to pick up on Matt taking his Daredevil mask off after turning back away from the window. Slowly, I unwound myself from my tight knot and settled for shrinking as deep as I could into the corner of the couch while hugging my knees to my chest. I tracked him by sight and heat as he circled back around the sofa and knelt down on the ground in front of me.

"Hey," he whispered softly, careful to keep his voice just loud enough for me to hear. He didn't have his glasses on, which allowed me my first unobstructed view of his eyes. I found myself staring into their vacant depths, into the slightly bluish hue of the hazy white orbs and the way they rested slightly too far right to actually be on my face. "Come on, Hebi. I need you to say something."

I closed my mouth and my eyes, slipping backwards so my face sunk behind my knees. I heard Matt sigh, and felt the vibrations of his feet even through the couch as he walked to the kitchen. It was easier than it normally would have been, with the rest of the building barely rustling and no other vibrations to muffle his. My concept of time was clearly completely shot even after only a couple hours of Hell, because it seemed like both a few seconds and a few eternities before Matt came back to me with a cup of tea in one hand. He pulled the coffee table over so part of it was pushed up right against the couch in front of me and set the tea down as closely as he could get to me on top of it.

I reluctantly opened my mouth, tasting the air. Peppermint— he must have been listening when I told him about my favorite teas for any bad days I had. A few flakes of my tension peeled away, just enough for me to slowly sit up and grab the cup. I just cradled it in my palms, letting the scalding liquid irritate my skin through the cup. The heat was grounding.

"Hebi," Matt tried speaking to me softly again. "You still have a bullet in your side. I'm going to call a friend, so you need to straighten out or you'll make the wound even worse. She'll help me get the bullet out and stitch you up, but you need to stay conscious."

"I'm not bleeding, am I?" I heard my own scratchy, dead voice offer up. There was a pause before he answered.

"A little bit, but we can clean that up later. It looks like most of it stopped."

I didn't bother nodding, raising the cup to my lips and taking a sip. Maybe if I didn't wait for the tea to cool I could burn off some of my scent receptors and get rid of the scent of blood that seemed to cling desperately to my tongue. Matt stepped away, taking out his phone to make the call. Before I really knew it, my cup was empty of tea and a woman I didn't know was gently stretching me out so she could see the bullet wound. She must not have thought I was lucid, because her gaze wasn't on my face and she started talking to Matt.

"Shit. This is nasty, and she's just a kid! What the hell have you gotten into this time, Matt? Start disinfecting the tweezers, I'll inject the pain meds."

I twitched when the woman reached for my arm, yanking it away before she could touch me.

"No needles," I hissed, hating how my own voice felt like glass shards against the inside of my throat. Her calm eyes moved up to meet mine firmly, leaving no room for argument in her gaze.

"You need this, kid. Trust me when I say you don't want to feel me digging into you to get that bullet out. I'll make it as quick as I can, okay?"

I grit my jaw, raising my hand to her chest. She stiffened, but didn't move away.

"Hebi," Matt's slightly disapproving voice met my ears, but it was followed by a sigh. "Just let her do this Claire, maybe it will calm her down."

Before the woman—Claire, apparently— could ask what he meant, I spoke up again.

"You're not gonna hurt me, right? There's nothing bad in that syringe?"

"Of course not!" Claire denied indignantly, her heart slightly picking up in annoyance.

"Stay calm Claire, you'll confuse her in her current state if you get worked up," Matt warned. The woman took a breath, then lowered her head from where she had raised it to look at Matt in order to meet my gaze again.

"No, I'm not going to hurt you, kid. There are only painkillers in the syringe. Once they kick in I'm gonna use the tweezers Matt's disinfecting to take the bullet out and stitch you up. Okay?"

Steady beating. I lowered my arm with a sigh, nodding finally in consent. I closed my eyes, doing my best to ignore as her fingertips prodded the inside of my elbow before finding a suitable spot and swiftly piercing a vein with the needle of the syringe. Slowly, I felt the throbbing pain I had pushed to the back of my head fade away.

"Keep your metabolism at full speed, Hebs," Matt murmured, suddenly close to my ear. He must have been leaning over the back of the couch to do that. I also didn't recognize that nickname, it was sudden but nice.

Full speed. That was only five percent faster than the average human, but I guess Matt thought it would make a difference. I flicked the mental switch before letting my eyes slide closed as I entered a sort of half-sleep. Maybe I'd get lucky and the medicine would wear off fast enough for me to feel the last stitch or two.

I deserved far worse, but I'd take what was given.

When my full awareness came back, I was laying down with my head on Matt's lap. Claire's scent was slightly stale in the air— she had been gone for about half an hour.

It took a moment before it registered, but when it did I flung myself off of him and onto the opposite side of the couch, where I huddled with my knees to my chest despite the shocks of pain it sent through my side.

"Hey! Hey, calm down or you'll rip your stitches!"

My breaths, which were coming in gasps, slowly slowed down as I got a handle on myself. I didn't lower my legs much though, just enough to stop stressing out the new patchwork on my bulletwound. Matt held his hands out to me, as if welcoming me in for a hug.

"Come on Hebi, you need rest and you're colder than you should be. Lay down again."

"No," I whispered, shaking my head firmly. Matt frowned.

"Come on Hebi," I shook my head again. "Hebs? Why won't you come closer to me?" I felt the vibration of his heart through the sofa cushions briefly stutter. "Is it— how much of the fight back there did you see?" The vulnerability in his voice hurt, but it was misplaced. I shook my head again, gritting my teeth.

"N-no. Didn't you see? Those— those men in the alley.."

Realization seemed to dawn on his face, his eyebrows coming out of their concerned furrow slightly.

"The ones that… I didn't exactly _see_ them, but yes."

His attempt at lightening the mood flew over my head.

"Then you know," I took a slow breath, trying not to strain my wound. I felt so broken. "You know what… what I can do to a human."

"You're a human, too," Matt gently tried to remind me, turning so he was facing me better.

"I'll hurt you," I whispered back, ignoring him. "I— I can't hug you, because I'll crush your spine. A-and I can't stay close to you, because I'll curl around you in my sleep and suffocate you, and I'll—"

"You shook Karen's hand without breaking anything back when you met her," Matt persisted, making frustrated tears rise to the corner of my eyes. Why was he so _stubborn?_ Didn't he see how dangerous I was? Didn't he _understand?_

"Daredevil can't just beat up only criminals he doesn't like," I changed my angle. "I—I _killed_ them, Matt. Murder. I'm a criminal just like—"

" _No,"_ The sudden force in his voice shut me up, and the fierce glare he had on all of a sudden seemed to light his sightless eyes up from the inside. "Don't you dare compare yourselves to them. You're not vile or corrupted, you were threatened and you protected yourself. You kept yourself alive, that's not a crime."

" _Yes it is!"_ I whisper-yelled back, desperate to scream it at him but knowing I couldn't. "I shouldn't even _be_ alive! Nobody—nobody _else_ lived, and they were all better than me! Me surviving everything they did— that was a mistake. I couldn't possibly— someone like me couldn't possibly have been meant to live. I'm cold, I can just shut myself off and, and kill people close to me. I can just stab my best friend without a second thought because it's how I had to survive. I can make myself feel _nothing_ when I wrap my hands around somebody's throat. It— it didn't phase me, it didn't bother me, to feel someone's pulse stop vibrating under my fingertips," I paused to take a breath, my eyes wrenched closed because I couldn't bring myself to watch Matt's expression. "They wanted a demon," I whispered. I couldn't even hear myself anymore, but I could feel my lips moving and air leaving my sensitive throat so I knew I was still speaking.

"They wanted a demon, so they loaded me up with snake DNA. Y'know, because the Devil took the shape of a snake. Because snakes are _evil._ They wanted to make a demon, because demons scare and demons as assassins sell. They put all their effort into making a demon. And they ended up with _me."_

The silence closed in on me after that. I didn't even notice I was crying again, as if I hadn't done enough of that already. I was so far in my own head that I didn't even notice heat getting closer to me until I felt arms wrap tight around me, forcing my knees down and pressing me against a hard chest. My bullet wound protested the force of the arms, but I couldn't help but ignore it.

Because I was suddenly surrounded by Matt's warmth, by Matt's scent. And, all at once, I realized I had never felt so safe before.

I couldn't bring myself to return the hug yet, I didn't trust myself in my current mental state, but for the first time that night I let myself give in to the comfort. I leaned into him, letting my tears fall heavier as he just rested his face in my short hair and held me tightly.

"You're not a demon," he whispered into my hair after a long moment. "But you know, someone a long time ago used to say that Murdock boys all had a bit of the Devil in them. And… I can't help but believe it," he admitted and I couldn't help but listen to his soft voice, couldn't help but relish the feeling of his voice vibrating through his chest. "The guy who comes out when I'm out on the streets as Daredevil? The one who sends guys to the hospital maimed or in comas? I always blame that on my inner Devil. I know it's my fault, it's still a part of me after all, but that's how I see it," I couldn't help but bite my lip as the realization sunk in that he probably never shared that with anybody else.

The joy and warmth that I felt at that thought filled me with guilt.

"But maybe we all have one," Matt continued. "Maybe it just has a bit of a stronger hold on some of us than others. That doesn't make us demons, it just makes us human," he pulled away from me so he could look towards my face. I could tell he was trying to meet my eyes, but he was still slightly off. "Snakes aren't evil either, despite what people may think. They're animals just like any other, and having their DNA doesn't make you evil or demonic. The things you've done aren't your fault. They were all in self preservation, Hebi. The result of the horrific situation you were in. And I know that you will probably never forget any of it, but maybe we can help you heal from it a little bit," his hand lifted from my back to brush the longer half of my asymmetrical bangs behind my ear. "But we're gonna have to change up our routine a little. No more distance. If you are having a bad day, I want to hear about it. And I want you to come to the office more often so we can spend some more time together. Maybe we can make the gym a more regular thing on the weekends."

I sniffled, cursing my useless nose for only causing issues. It didn't even smell anymore, it only made snot for me to be forced to disgustingly sniff back up whenever I cried. "Okay," I whispered. "I… I think I can deal with that."

"Good," Matt nodded. He pulled himself away, but not a moment passed before he pulled me down with him. Pretty soon we were laid down next to each other on the tiny couch, which made me lay down on top of his chest in order to fit. I felt like a little kid, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to mind.

"Why did you run away?" By the time Matt asked that, I was almost asleep and my filter was nonexistent. I buried my face deeper into his chest.

"I thought Stick was gonna kill me," I admitted softly. Matt shifted underneath me.

"You know I wouldn't have let him, right?"

"That's… not it," I whispered. "I agreed with everything he said about me. I… I thought he was right. But I knew that _you_ would be the one blamed if I showed up dead in your apartment out of nowhere. So… so I wanted to get as far as I could so that nobody could pin my murder on you. But when it came down to it, I didn't plan on stopping him."

I faded away to sleep before I could hear his response.

—*—*—*—*—*

 **Oh lookie at that, the rating changed from T to M! I should have expected that, because I can't keep a story from getting super dark and mature for long apparently. So, uh. Depressing chapter yeah? Whump could be my middle name. I'm trying to tone it down, but… yeah no promises.**

 **KH4Evr: Thank you! I'm so glad you like and I really appreciate taking your time to comment! 3 thank you so much for my first review!**

 **See you next chapter~**


	5. Chapter 5

"I don't know, Foggy. You can't just get rid of years of self-discrimination overnight. You didn't hear her— she didn't even consider herself _human,"_ Matt said in his office, Foggy sat on the other side of the desk as they worked through paperwork together. He had told Hebi to stay at the apartment that day to recover from her bulletwound, promising to take her with him to work for the rest of the week afterwards in exchange. She had gotten oddly clingy, and he had learned the hard way that the other aspect of her powers she hadn't covered with him was her partial cold-bloodedness. She didn't tangle herself into a knot when they slept on the couch because she was too busy burying herself as closely to him as possible, absorbing his body heat.

"Have you considered therapy? Psychologists could be a lot of help," Karen offered up, the door between the main room and the office open so she could listen in on their conversation.

"I don't know, Karen. We'd have to tell the therapist everything about Hebi in order for that to even have a chance of working, and I don't think either of us is ready to trust a stranger like that," Matt responded with a frown. "But, I'm just worried about what her mindset might cause her to do. I mean, what if one of you happens to be with her when trouble breaks out? She wouldn't think twice about throwing herself in front of a bullet if she thought it would save you."

"Welcome to our world," Foggy said ruthlessly, looking up from his stack of papers. "Karen and I have to constantly worry about you doing the exact same thing. No sense of self preservation, and now we have _two_ of you living under the same roof? I'm one step away from a heart attack," Foggy had gotten pretty close to Hebi, the girl's dry and sarcastic wit matching with his own sense of humor beautifully. For them anyway, it annoyed the hell out of Matt and Karen. In a good way, of course. Totally.

"Actually, I think it's better to have two than one. So they can cancel each other out," Karen suggested, leaving her own desk in the waiting room to lean in their doorway. "Neither of them will let the other throw their life away if they're in the same area anyway."

"Guys," Matt interrupted when it seemed like Foggy was going to reply to Karen. "I mean it, I feel like she'll only get worse if she's stuck with someone like me. I'm not the best role model for pursuing good mental health and not making self destructive choices," Matt lifted his glasses for a moment so he could rub at his eyes in frustration.

"Matt, you're the one that said it can't be solved overnight. What Hebi needs is a steady home and a normal lifestyle," Foggy's suggestion gained a raised eyebrow and half-hearted glare from his blind friend. "Which, yeah, you're not the shining example of either of those things. But she doesn't need _complete_ normality. It might even drive her crazy, if you try to throw her into a completely average life. But you've got a pretty steady job, you're not going to give her up or anything, and she's going to be able to go to school like a normal kid in another, what, month and a half give or take? That's already pretty normal. Dealing with your nighttime criminal-punching will probably help her feel like things aren't changing too quickly."

"And you already said you planned to bond with her more," Karen spoke up again with a smile that Matt could sense from his position behind his desk. "Having a father figure like you will do wonders, just you see—"

"I would love to, Karen—"

"Don't finish that sentence, Murdock, you know what I meant," the secretary glared playfully, waving a finger at the redhead before walking back out to sort more files.

Matt could only smile, Foggy chuckling softly alongside him, at Karen's antics. But having his friends offering suggestions helped, even if he still didn't feel like they were right. There had to be something he could do. But even without the answers, just knowing his friends were backing him up with Hebi lifted the weight on his shoulders.

The lawyer's hands stilled over the sheet of Braille he had been reading. Maybe that was what Hebi needed. Friends she could trust.

"Oh boy," he muttered under his breath, causing the blond on the other side of the table to look up, one eyebrow raised in confusion.

"What?"

"How is a traumatized fifteen year old mutate with trust issues going to be able to let herself make friends in high school?" The redhead asked, feeling a headache coming on. "She still doesn't tell me things that happen on a daily basis. So far she's been pretty easy to take care of, which isn't right. Teenagers have problems, they have frustrations. But she's never once asked for my help."

"You lost me," Foggy admitted.

"Friends, Foggy. She needs friends her own age, like I have you and Karen," Matt explained. "People she can talk to."

"Then she better ace her entrance exams," Foggy said with a shrug, tone casual as if the problem could just be solved that easily. "If she gets into Midtown Science, she'll find plenty of nerds to be friends with. She talked my ear off yesterday about Spider-man's webs and how she wants to steal a sample to recreate for medical purposes," Foggy's smile was easy to sense for Matt, despite the annoyance in the other guy's tone. "I think Daredevil has been bumped down to her second favorite vigilante, sorry."

Matt snorted at that, going back to running his fingertips over Braille. "Nah. At least I know she doesn't just want _me_ for my inventions."

—*—*—*—*—*

That following Saturday night, Matt spent with Hebi. He decided that Hell's kitchen could last one night without him (at least until he snuck out after Hebi fell asleep, like he was planning).

"How's your side?" The redhead asked, not smelling any new blood but knowing that Hebi wouldn't tell him about any pain she had unless he asked. It was times like those that made Matt glad he was a walking polygraph. Hebi could fool pretty much anyone with her lying, _except_ people with Matt's brand of enhanced hearing.

He felt Hebi's head raise up from where she was shoveling ice cream into her mouth, the black cherry flavored treat coating her lips. Apparently being partially cold blooded didn't stop her from gorging herself on softserve if she was allowed to. Matt heard a soft huff of air leave her nose, but it sounded more amused than anything else.

"I've had worse than one bullet in my side, Matt. It didn't even hit anything vital," and yeah, that just worried the hell out of her guardian. As if he wasn't already furious enough at the thought of what she went through at the hands of that group, now he knew they had apparently given her a worse wound than a gunshot. _A gunshot._

"What, have you had _two_ bullets in your side or something?" The lawyer replied sarcastically, one brow risen above his round glasses. "That doesn't answer my question you know."

"I'm fine. It's just burns a lot still, but I'll recover. No complex sleep-doughnuts for a while though, even I'm not crazy enough to do contortion with stitches in my abdomen," the teen took a large scoop of ice cream, scooting closer to Matt's side despite already being pressed up against it. They were watching the audio-descriptive version of The Empire Strikes Back, because Hebi was the biggest closeted nerd that Matt now knew.

The vigilante had to shake his head, a bittersweet smirk on his lips. It took a minute for his ward to notice it, and he could sense her brows furrowing when she did.

"What? What's up?"

"Nothing. It's just that you're just as stubborn as any Murdock," the buzz of lightsabers played in the background as Matt made a sound halfway between a sigh and a chuckle. "I haven't decided if that's good or bad yet."

"I'm really not," Hebi whispered, her head tilted so that Matt figured she was staring into her carton of ice cream. "But, if being stubborn like a Murdock means being able to drag myself up and keep living, then maybe I'd like to be. I certainly have the best role model in New York to learn from on that account."

"Yeah?" Matt felt his smirk turn into a soft smile. "Try not to copy me too much, though. Red isn't your color."

"Matt," Hebi's dry tone forced Matt to use all of his self control to keep a straight face. "You're blind."

"I am? Woah, I never noticed."

"Do you even know what red looks like?" Hebi tilted her head, and Matt could feel her gaze on his cheek. "I mean, I just assumed you were born blind but you never told me."

Yeah, he hadn't had he? Matt snorted at the realization, making Hebi sit up and her heart pick up slightly.

"What? What did I say?"

"Nothing, I just realized that I'm not the best role model when it comes to opening up. I didn't even realize I haven't told you that story yet," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. "Can we turn off the movie now? We aren't even paying attention to it anymore."

Hebi practically leapt towards the laptop, clicking out of the window they had open. Matt could feel the temperature in Hebi's cheeks flare up when she realized Matt was staring towards her trying not to laugh at her enthusiasm. The teenager cleared her throat, trying to save some of her dignity.

"Having the audio description and the subtitles on at the same time was just weird, okay?" Matt's hum apparently didn't assure Hebi, who just blushed harder. "So, I'm assuming by 'story,' that you mean you lost your sight instead of being born blind, right?"

And there went all of Matt's amusement. He wasn't upset by the story or anything, not after having plenty of years to get used to his situation, but it still wasn't a particularly happy one.

"Nah, I was a normal kid—" Hebi's scoff of disbelief made him smirk a little bit in spite of himself. "—No, really, I was. Anyway, I noticed a blind man who was crossing the street about to get hit by a truck—" Hebi was suddenly pinching her nose, which made Matt's grin widen. "Yeah yeah, the irony. Anyway, I pushed him out of the way. But when the truck swerved, the containers of radioactive waste it was carrying fell over and I ended up getting covered in it. It got into my eyes and blinded me, but it enhanced all of my other senses to what they are."

"Your life sounds like a comic book," Hebi deadpanned, making Matt laugh. It wasn't a chuckle or a snort, it was an actual laugh. Hebi sat up a bit straighter, seeming spurred on by it. "Boy pushes blind man out of the way, goes blind himself. But oh no, toxic waste! Which then gives the boy the exact magical powers he needs to become a kickass superhero! Kinda. Except, in hindsight, most heroes don't get beat up nearly as badly as you do," Matt just shrugged in agreement, still chuckling.

"Nobody would buy a comic book about me," Matt argued, ruffling Hebi's hair despite her squeals of indignance. "Every issue would be me getting my ass kicked for three fourths of it."

"Heh, like a Bruce Willis film. Gets beat up for an hour and a half, then comes back and hands the bad guys their asses for the last half hour straight. And people love Bruce Willis films. Daredevil comics would be a bit!" Matt sensed Hebi raising a hand to her chin, and could practically _feel_ her sly grin. "In fact…"

"Nope," Matt vetoed instantly. "No Daredevil comics. No Daredevil stories, and just in case you find a way— no Daredevil movies."

"You ruin all my fun."

"Your ice cream is melting."

"Shit!" Hebi instantly went back to devouring her treat, and Matt just leaned back and wondered how the hell a teenager could get him to relax so easily.

It wasn't until half past midnight that Hebi finally managed to fall asleep, right on top of Matt's chest like the previous night. He really had to stop letting her do that before it became a habit, the leather couch wasn't comfortable to sleep on. And, even more of a problem, he couldn't sneak out as Daredevil when she was so light of a sleeper that the moment he even _tried_ to slide out from under her she would wake up.

Matt could only sigh, for once grateful that Hebi's hearing was bad enough for the sound to not wake her up. Figures, assassins couldn't let down their guard. Apparently that meant they couldn't sleep soundly enough for their guardians to go out and beat up criminals.

Matt shifted his position— apparently they couldn't sleep soundly enough for their human pillow to get into a comfortable position to sleep in, either. But instead of opening her eyes when Matt shifted slightly, he heard her... _whine._

The sound was so soft that he probably wouldn't have heard it without his enhanced hearing at all. He stiffened when Hebi twisted closer to his chest, making that tiny whine in the back of her throat again. When it happened a third time, Matt realized what it was.

She was having a nightmare.

Probably the quietest nightmare in the world too, which meant that it probably wouldn't have caused enough of a racket to wake Matt up from a dead sleep. Worry spiked in his chest. Slowly, Matt reached up to lay his hands on Hebi's shoulder. He would normally never condone waking Hebi up forcefully since there was the risk of being constricted accidentally, but this time he didn't care. His kid needed his help again.

"Hebi," he whispered, knowing he was close enough for her to hear him. "Hebi, wake up. It's just a nightmare, you're okay!"

Hebi's grip tightened on his shirt, but her heart rate picked up enough for him to tell that she was awake. "No… no needles," or, mostly awake. "No more needles, no more shocks. I _hate cold water."_

Her voice was breathy, probably not even loud enough for her to hear herself.

"Hebi, it's okay. It's me, Matt. You're at our apartment, we fell asleep on the couch again. You're okay, Hebi. You're okay."

"I want a real dad," her half-asleep voice mumbled again, making Matt take a slow breath.

"I don't really think I'd make a good dad, Hebi. But I can't be worse than that last asshole, so…"

"So you'll adopt me?" Hebi's head shot up, eyes wide. Matt blinked, raising an eyebrow.

"Weren't you just having sleepy delusions?"

"Well, yeah but that last one was just me fishing."

" _Hebi."_

"Awesome! That's the perfect disapproving-dad voice."

"...once I adopt you, you are grounded."

"I can live with that."

"But, ground rules," Matt lifted his hand to count them out for her visually. "If this is going to happen, you have to tell me when you have a nightmare. You don't have to talk to me about the nightmare itself and you can wait until the next morning if you really want to, but I want to know. Second, you have to promise to at least try to open up to me a little more. Third, you have to make sure _I_ open up to _you_ , because I might not notice if I'm closing myself off. Deal?"

"Yeah," Hebi shrugged, laying her head back on his chest. "But I have a condition of my own."

"Shoot."

"You need to let me come out with you on your patrol every week."

" _What?"_ Matt sat up suddenly, but instead of flying off of him Hebi ended up pretty much stuck to his chest. Not the same way Spider-man stuck to a wall though, she was just able to hold her whole body weight on his body with just the minuscule anchor of her fingers curled into his shirt. Less sticky, more clingy. Ignoring his new jacket, Matt glared down towards Hebi. "Absolutely not. It is way too dangerous—"

"For you to do alone? I agree. You haven't even seen me fight full out, we haven't even sparred in the gym yet. You just stick me on the weights and punching bags and go do your own thing," Hebi lowered her butt back onto the couch, slowly letting go of Matt's shirt before she tore it. "Come on, please?"

Matt frowned deeply. There was no way he could allow it. Not only could Hebi get hurt— _again—_ she would also be exposed to more of the way he fought as Daredevil. Matt wasn't the most kid friendly vigilante, he broke bones and occasionally tortured information out of people, and there were a few coma-induced patients in the list of people he beat up. There was no way Hebi would be okay with living under the same roof as somebody like that. Not even Foggy, who had been his best friend for years, could completely accept that violent side of him. And after the amount of violence Hebi had already had to endure, he didn't want her to have to fight even more. Or to see that kind of fighting anymore.

"No. Hebi, I can keep you safe right here. You don't have to fight. It's my job, _especially_ if I adopt you, to keep you _safe._ You can have a normal life, forget about what they did to you. Become a biochemist or whatever other job you might want."

"Don't be stupid," Hebi had definitely never said something like to Matt before, not seriously. He felt his frown deepen, her tone having been dark and stubborn enough to tell him that he wouldn't win the argument easily. "You can't just forget about stuff like that. I know you know better. I'm not going to wake up one day and not remember the shit they put me through. Not unless I got one hell of a knock on my head, but I rather not risk losing any _good_ memories on that tactic. But I _can_ defend myself and you _can_ benefit from having a usually-functioning pair of eyes backing you up."

"There is no way you are coming out on your shed cycle, for _sure,"_ Matt instantly rebuked, not liking where the argument was heading.

"Don't be a hypocrite—"

" _No, Hebi!_ You don't have the same sonar senses or anything that I do, it isn't the same when you're blind. You are way better off than most with your heat vision, but that just won't cut it all the time in a fight. People can come up behind you and you won't hear them."

"I can wear thin soled shoes to feel their steps through the ground," Hebi instantly offered.

May grit his teeth, not about to let up. "I said _no._ That is final, Hebi."

Perhaps if he had been able to see, he would have noticed the look that entered the teenager's eyes and known the mistake he had made. But he couldn't, so he had no idea.

"Then don't adopt me. I won't have Matt Murdock as my dad and not Daredevil, and I won't set myself up to lose another parent."

Hebi pushed Matt back down after that, curling up on his chest again. The vigilante could only frown, upset by the events but not about to back down.

"If you're mad at me, then get off," Matt snapped. "I would like to sleep on my silk sheets, thanks."

"Hell no, if I get up then you'll sneak out on patrol."

Damn.

—*—*—*—*—*

A week passed, and Hebi's shed cycle came about only two days after the two month mark of knowing Matt. She wore her dark purple sunglasses that Karen had bought for her during that shopping spree so long ago already. They sat close to her face, covering her eyes even from the sides so that it wouldn't be easy for somebody to catch glimpse of the milky, opaque white that covered her eyes before shedding off.

Once again, Matt had picked up on it almost immediately. He and Hebi had been slightly strained over the past week or so since their argument, but they still ate breakfast together every day and pretended everything was fine. Matt still made effort to take more time with Hebi, whose bullet wound was healed enough by then for her to go back into her instinctual sleep pretzels and basic contortion. Claire, who insisted on a follow up with her late at night, did warn the both of them that Hebi should avoid overworking it but that it was healing slightly faster and probably about as perfectly as it could.

"It's the snake genes," Hebi told Matt that morning as she sat at the table sending out the placement of her food with her heat vision. "Snakes, and a lot of reptiles in general, can make full recoveries from extremely devastating injury even out in the wild. My DNA might have been effected in a similar way, making my immune system more resistant to injury infection. I haven't really been lucid enough to ask whenever it was relevant though."

Matt swallowed a bite of his omelette, eyebrows furrowed. "You aced your entrance exams, maybe you can test your DNA after school in one of Midtown's high tech labs one day. There might be things you can do that you don't know about yet," He tiles his head in thought. "Maybe we should test how far your strength goes in the gym this weekend. I know you can crush guns with your constriction, but what about lifting strength?"

Matt could sense Hebi shrug, sipping her morning tea. It was a new blend she had put together to test, and even picky Matt had given it his seal of approval despite not being nearly as into tea as his ward was.

"I don't really think it's the same kind of strength. Contracting your muscles is different than pushing or punching outwards. I can lift a car though, I think. I've only ever really had to lift one off the ground a bit so I don't know if I'd be able to bench press one or anything, but it's an idea."

"Yeah, the idea of you bench pressing a car is terrifying," Matt's face was twisted a bit at the mental image. Hebi snorted. It was pretty relaxed despite the tension of their argument still hanging in the air. But then again, it was Hebi's shed cycle. Her shed cycle tended to bring them a bit closer and it was easy to see that even if it was only the third shed cycle she'd had around Matt.

"Well, deadlifting a car takes a different kind of strength," Hebi spoke again. "I mean I'm built for assassination, not wrestling. I'm fast and I have a lot of explosive and endurance strength, but not really brute strength. You know, my body is built for one or two super strong hits at a time, not holding a building over my head."

"Or apparently acting really creepy, and keeping your body horizontal over open air with only your ankle anchored around the back of the sofa. For an hour."

Matt could feel the heat in Hebi's face heat up as the girl blushed. "I wanted to make sure I didn't lose any of my core strength! I told you, _endurance_ strength. Snakes don't have limbs to hold them up, it takes a lot of endurance to hold a strike pose like they do."

"Don't lie, you were trying to find the teaspoon you dropped but couldn't see where it rolled. I don't know why you'd think staying in place would make it pop out of thin air, but—"

"I thought maybe I just couldn't see it because of my vision! So, uh, I wanted to stay still to see if I'd notice a gleam of the metal or something."

"It was behind you."

"I know that _now!"_

Eventually Foggy came to pick up Matt, and Hebi slinked over to the cabinet they had gotten set up in a corner to hold all of Hebi's non-clothing items. All her clothes were stored in one half of Matt's closet, which had taken getting used to for both of them but worked out. Opening the first door of the cabinet, Hebi stared towards her stack of school books that she had gotten early to study for the new, extremely intense school she would be going to. And realized;

She _wouldn't be able to read for one week every month._

"Ah, shit," she muttered. She never learned Braille because her blindness was always temporary, but even if she did it wouldn't really cover for her in school when she was trying to hide her blindness. Hebi was extremely fond of chemistry, but mechanics flew over her head. She knew there was no way in hell she'd be able to make anything to help her with her predicament.

"Well," she muttered. "I guess I need to beg a favor from the old grouch," she sighed, adding that to her list of chores for the day. "But first things first," she closed that door and opened the bottom most drawer of the closet now that she knew she wouldn't be able to study just yet. Underneath a few hats and a brand new backpack laid a wrapped bundle, which she pulled out. Slowly pulling off the butcher paper wrapped around it, three pieces of fabric were revealed.

Hebi wasn't able to see it, but she had already looked over it visually the day before when she had snuck out during the day to get it. She had been able to let Matt leave her at home so she could prepare for her new school year, especially since she had summer assignments to finish up before the year began.

But with her eye caps currently rendering her blind, the teenager settled for running her fingers over the durable material. Satisfied, she packed it into her still-empty backpack, followed by a generously sized glass jar of her newest tea blend. She hoped it would soften up the grouch she was about to visit. After a moment's thought, she also pulled the first textbook she could grab into the bag too, just in case. Slipping out of her pajamas and into a real outfit for the day, she headed out.

Hebi lifted her phone to her lips. "Text Foggy- 'I'll be out visiting a friend, but I'll be back before dinner. Tell Matt for me.'"

"Text sent."

—*—*—*—*—*

I knocked on the door in front of me, one hand still wrapped around the strap of my backpack. Inside the house was slightly disorienting— every time I touched the wall I could feel millions of tiny vibrations as if there were tons of tiny men running around inside. Thankfully though, it didn't take very long for the door to open to an unfamiliar woman. Unfortunately, the woman's perfume hurt my tongue and I had to keep my mouth partially closed to deal with it.

"Yes?" Her voice was cool and professional, but friendly enough I supposed.

"I'm here to see Hank Pym. You can tell him the brat that saved his life is here, he'll understand."

I could feel the woman's muscles tense in shock, making me grin slightly.

"Saved my life? You saved me from a broken arm, don't be dramatic!" The voice that called out angrily from deeper inside the house made me snicker. "Get in here, maybe I can force you to eat a decent meal for once!"

The woman in the door sighed, stepping aside to let me in. "Follow me," she said simply, and I did as she asked as she led me into the house's dining room.

"Wow, new clothes? Glasses?" Hank Pym seemed surprised. "Was someone finally able to drag you off the streets, girl?" Even though my ears were focused on the old man, my heat vision and scent receptors were analyzing the new body also in the room with me. Male, thankfully not wearing overpowering cologne.

Shaking off my observations, I grinned and slung my backpack forward so I could reach into it and pull out the glass jar I had packed inside.

"Yeah, but that's a story for another time. I recently was able to buy a bunch of herbs, and I mixed a tea blend especially for you," I held the offering out with a large smile on my face. The old man just stared in my direction for a moment before reaching out to grab the jar almost greedily.

"Hebi, this is my daughter Hope and a guy I'm training, Scott. Scott, Hope, this is Hebi. She caught me when I was about to fall down a cement staircase, and ever since she's been showing up with any information she thinks I need to know. She's good at hearing important information," Hank filled in the other two people in the room before turning his gaze back to me. I could feel his half-hearted glare and grinned in response. "And she is clearly buttering me up. What do you want?"

I tilted my head, considering the other two people with us. Just because Hope was his daughter didn't really mean— "You can trust them. I know you have some abilities you have never told me about, does this have something to do with them?"

I sighed. "I forgot how observant you old people are," I teased. "So you're training a new Ant-man? You any good with mechanics, Scott?" The man, who I could practically feel boiling over with the need to talk (seriously, he was jittery and his overflowing energy was starting to slightly get on my nerves), instantly took the opportunity to speak.

"I'm more of an electrician, personally. And I'm totally already the new Ant-man, I don't need any more training. By the way, should she know about that? It really doesn't seem like a kid should know about that. And what my secret identity?"

Hank let out a long-suffering sigh at Scott's word vomit that made me chuckle. "I told you, Scott," Hank interrupted the still-talking man slowly. "Hebi hears things. It wouldn't surprise me if she researched me after saving me that first time, and found all the hidden information about the Ant-Man. She confessed she knew about it after the third time we met. Get to the point brat, it must be one heck of a favor if you're stalling this much."

I sighed, rubbing my forehead and taking a seat at the table with Hank and Scott without asking. Nobody corrected me, so I set my backpack on the table.

"For those of you who don't know, I was homeless until recently. But two months ago, some stuff happened and I ended up getting a legal guardian I can trust. Because of that, I'm finally able to go back to school and I even ended up testing into Midtown Science," an appreciative whistle came from Scott at the news, and I could feel even Hank slightly lean back in his seat. Hope, who I had nearly forgotten was in the room, hummed in approval.

"Sounds like nothing but good news to me, Kid," Scott spoke. "Midtown's top of the line."

"Yeah, I'm excited," I admitted with a smile that vanished a second later. "But that's where the issue starts. I'm a chemistry and biology girl, I suck at mechanics and really anything electrical. But my abilities give me a bit of a… disability, that I would like to hide."

"A disability?" Hope asked, finally moving to join the rest of us at the table. "What kind of disability?"

I frowned, thinking over my phrasing for a moment. "I… don't want to go into details, but I'm a mutate. I was injected with radioactive snake DNA, and got several different abilities from it. But not all of them are beneficial," I ignored whatever reactions the others were giving, instead reaching for my glasses. "This is one of them. Every month, I experience my version of a shed cycle. It lasts six days, with the shed coming off on day seven," I pulled the sunglasses off my face. The silence was thick. "It renders me blind for almost a week. I can't read or study normally, and I can't read Braille. People don't tend to just go blind temporarily, and I don't want anyone to know about my abilities. I was hoping you could make something that might be able to read for me during these periods. Maybe scan text and read it into my ear."

"That would be distracting though, especially in school when you have to also listen to teachers," Scott spoke up, drumming his fingers on the table. It was clear he was still reeling from what I had revealed, but worked through it. "And normally you'd need one of those sticks to navigate if you're blind, right? How did you walk in here as easily as if you could see?"

Yeah, it was naive of me to think I could get something made for me without giving away some more of my abilities. I sighed, deciding to bite the bullet. Hank was a good man, I'd just have to trust him and the other two in the room.

"I have heat pits hidden under the outermost layer of skin on my lips, and right under my nose," I admitted. "It gives me accurate heat sensing, basically heat vision."

"How accurate?" Hank spoke up again, and I could sense him straightening up in his seat. I chuckled.

"To a hundredth of a degree and a sixteenth of an inch. Why?"

Hank stood up, and I could just tell he probably had an idea. "I'll have something for you by Monday. Bring another jar of tea. And bring those sunglasses back with you too."

—*—*—*—*—*

I left Hank Pym's house, but instead of going back home I decided to try out a trial run in the outfit I had packed in my backpack, back in an abandoned building I had used as a squat once for a while back when I was still homeless. I only left because it had gotten too stuffy for me during the hot weather leading up to summer.

Slipping in, I did a full scan of the floor I had chosen in the abandoned office building to make sure nobody was currently around. Once that was done, I slipped into one of the small rooms that was probably a closet back when the building was still in use, and slipped on the costume for the first time.

I used the columns in the building and the scattered, leftover furniture to test out the outfit. It was flexible, and the feet on it offered protection while still being thin enough to allow me to feet vibrations through the ground. The mask had tinted lenses, allowing me to see out but not allowing anyone to see in—both for my identity's sake and to hide my eyes when I was in shed so nobody would be able to tell when I was blind. I spent about an hour trying everything out before packing up and leaving the building, mentally thanking that contact I knew that owed me a favor. I had stayed in the shadows or behind him the whole time when dealing with them, so they didn't know who I was. Being homeless had had its perks, such as accidentally running into people with certain skills that were suddenly coming into handy.

That night, after dinner and after hanging out with Matt for a while, I pretended to go to sleep. If Matt wasn't going to let me out on patrol with him, I'd go out on my own. I had only waited a week to get a decent costume made, figuring I might as well protect my identity if I was going to make a target out of myself. The material wasn't as durable as what Matt's costume was made of, probably, but I did made sure it would at least keep a knife from hitting me too deeply. It wasn't bullet proof at all, though, but I figured I needed more flexibility than durability in my costume unlike Matt since my fighting style was so different. I wouldn't brawl against multiple people like he did unless it was unavoidable, so hopefully I wouldn't need the armor factor.

I waited ten minutes after Matt left to slip out of the window, knowing he had gotten far enough to stop tuning in to the apartment. In my new costume, I used the rooftops as my road and followed Matt's scent trail.

Toes barely touching down at each step, I ran low across each roof until I heard the telltale sounds of fighting. I smirked, which was visible in the opening of my mask around my mouth. Trust my guardian to be able to find criminals so quickly, I wouldn't be surprised if he just had another gift for finding people that needed their asses kicked.

I leapt onto a nearby street lamp, hanging by my ankles upside down on it, not far from the busted light bulb of the lamp. I let my mouth fall opens but more, identifying all the different bodies by heat and scent in the fray that was below. Nobody had noticed me, which was good because it meant I hadn't regressed in my training.

I waited for a minute, observing as my guardian fought against the seven men at once. I didn't want to get in his way, I just wanted to prove my point. So, once I noticed a man starting to aim a gun at him behind his back I swung myself down. My arm coiled around the gun barrel, crumbling it in on itself even as my other hand swung a fist straight at the man's temple. The hit connected easily, and man crumbling down unconscious. I turned back to the rest of the fight, identifying four of the heat signatures that Daredevil had been fighting out cold across the ground, leaving two more against him.

Matt had apparently taken several hard hits, but I wasn't too worried. Now that it was down to two and Matt had likely noticed me, I jumped in to grab one of the men. I disarmed and knocked him out right as Matt finished with the last guy himself. As I suspected, he was no longer shocked when he turned to me— but I could tell by the way his fists were clenched by his sides that he was not happy.

"I thought we talked about this, H…" he stopped himself, clearly not wanting to say my name out loud. I shrugged.

"Come on, double D. You should have known I wouldn't listen for long," I felt strangely confident in my costume, like it marked my graduation into a certified badass. "As far as names go, let's just say Python. It's simple and not too cartoony."

For a long moment, all he could do was make sounds of frustration, so I walked over and took one of the guy's phones to dial 911 for him. By the time I knew the police were on the way, Matt had collected himself.

"Go back," he grumbled in his gravelly Daredevil voice. I turned back to him, eyebrows raised under my mask.

"Sorry, I'm a vigilante now. And since I have nothing to do with Daredevil, you can't order me around. So," I jumped up, kicking off the side of a building and grabbing easily back onto the lamp post I had started on. My fingers of my right hand easily held my whole body weight. "You're stuck with me for now, Darey."

I heard a short growl of frustration come from his voice, but he obviously saw the situation for being the hopeless mess it was on his part and didn't offer another argument.

"Fine, but we are talking about this later. Keep up, and don't get in my way," he growled out, and I smiled in triumph. I pulled myself up higher and then swung myself over so I was hanging upside down with only my fingers curled around the lamppost keeping me up in the air. Below me, Matt stayed still for a moment before climbing up to the roof of the building next to my lamppost, and crouching down as he tuned in to a larger area to sense any other crime that might have been happening.

"Come on," he grumbled, taking off. I grinned as I flipped off from my upside-down position to land next to him, running by his side.

"You know, you sound like a grumpy old man when you talk like that," I kept my voice down, almost quiet enough for me to be unable to hear myself. But, of course, Daredevil could hear me perfectly. He didn't dignify my quip with a response, picking up his pace slightly instead. I didn't rise to the bait, instead staying a steady few feet behind him.

It didn't take long for us to reach the next crime, which had me clenching my jaw. I crouched down by the lip of a building, letting my heat vision scan the scene even as Daredevil jumped down. As much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't jump down with him because I worked better as backup to thin out the people he had to fight one by one.

There was a girl, probably about my age, knocked out and in the arms of one of the men. Another girl around the same age, awake, was straining against another older female who was clearly very strong considering she didn't seem burdened at all by the younger girl's struggles. The teenager was trying to yell despite getting smacked at every attempt. A man was heading to gag her, but that was the first person Matt jumped in to knock out. The man and the female with the hostages backed up, letting the three other men with them draw their guns and run in to face my guardian.

 _Break it apart_ , I ordered myself silently. My instincts told me to protect Matt, but my logic told me that he didn't need it nearly as much as those girls did. The people trying to kidnap the girls smelled like drugs, alcohol, gunpowder, and chloroform. I could smell tranquilizers in one of the man's guns, suggesting they were professionals. Probably traffickers.

"We'll take the cargo, join us at the meet up point once you kill the Devil," the rough voice of the woman barked out right before she and the man carrying the passed out teenager turned and ran. Definitely traffickers. I narrowed my blind eyes, leaping forward to land on the building across the alley closer to the fleeing kidnappers before jumping down in front of them.

" who the hell are you?" The man fell back, the woman having an arm free despite the struggles of her captive and used it to aim a gun at me. I smirked.

"Just a demon, no big deal," I quipped darkly, running forward before she pulled the trigger. I ducked into a roll, and twisted after my landing so my legs knocked the woman off her feet. As she fell backwards I surged up, grabbing her wrist and _squeezing._ My hand easily broke her wrist, squeezing a scream of pain from the woman's throat as she dropped the gun in that now ruined hand. I grabbed the weapon before it hit the ground, crumpling and barrel before hurling it at the head of the second kidnapper. The metal soundly hit the man's head, knocking him back and making him lose grip of the girl he was carrying. I slammed my elbow into the female kidnapper's head to knock her out before surging forward, grabbing the male kidnapper by the throat and slamming my knee right into his crotch.

Another pained scream entered the air, slightly strangled by my careful grip on his throat. The combination of me limiting his air and his pain from my dirty kick made him limp, so I got rid of his weapons and dropped him.

That dealt with, I turned to the passed out girl and leaned her carefully against the wall, pushing my finger gently against her neck to feel the vibration of her pulse. It was slow, but steady. She was just sedated. The other girl, sobbing for a multitude of reasons, walked up behind me. It wasn't hard to track the salt in the air from her tears or the vibration of her slightly heavy footsteps.

"Th-Thank you," the girl stuttered. "Is, is Stacy okay?" I frowned at the other girl's vulnerable tone in her voice. It reminded me all too much of how I had felt only slightly more than a week earlier.

"Just sedated," I reached over to grab the phone I had taken off the female kidnapper. "Take this. Call the cops—" I sat up suddenly, hearing a familiar yell of pain after a gunshot. "Shit. Do as I say, count to a hundred and twenty and call the cops. Stay near your friend, and yell if one of these two wakes up, got it? And if anyone asks, just say I'm Python. I don't want to find out what crazy nickname the press will make for me otherwise," I kicked the man so he was completely passed out instead of limp in pain, just to be safe. Once I registered the girl nodding, I ran back to Matt.

All four men he had been fighting were out, but he was bleeding. A bullet had hit the weaker red fabric of his costume, sending the scent of his blood into the air. I cursed under my breath, jogging over to where he was leaning heavily against a wall in the alley. Even I could hear his pained panting.

"I'm fine," he growled out at me. "The girls?"

"Oh please I know you could hear us, we weren't far. Don't change the subject, I need to carry you."

"It went clean through," Matt informed me, and I tilted my head to realize I could, actually, smell blood coming from an exit wound as well as the entrance. That made things easier, at least. Carrying him wouldn't strain my own healing wound too much, and the bullet went through his thigh so there was no way he was walking home.

"The nurse's place? It'll be easier to take you there," I asked softly, turning and jabbing a thumb towards my shoulder. "Come on, hop on."

"... this is humiliating," I managed to hear him mutter, making me snort as I felt him climb onto my back. The fact that he was almost a full foot taller than me didn't make it hard.

I easily shouldered my guardian's weight, running down the alley until I reached a fire escape I could climb without jostling the vigilante on my back too much. Once I was traveling over rooftops again and following Matt's directions, I decided to speak.

"You know, how would you have made it home without me? Or to Claire's?"

"Hebi."

"You would have called Foggy right? After stumbling somewhere halfway safe and probably passing out. Foggy can't defend himself like I can, plus this is so much more sanitary than passing out in an alleyway."

"Hebi," Matt said again, huffing, but I didn't relent.

"And what if there had been another guy still awake? Those two with the girls might have escaped if I wasn't there—"

"I _get it_. You can come out with me twice a week on patrol, once on your shed. You're so stubborn," the last part was said in a slightly fond grumble, but I still heard it. "But not more than that. You'll have school to focus on soon and you'll need to put a lot of effort into your studies. Especially on your— shit, how will we be able to hide your shed cycle at school? How did I not think of that?"

I grinned. "I got it covered, I visited a friend earlier today that might be able to help. Maybe you can tell the school I have an eye condition though, so that I'll be allowed to wear my sunglasses in class during the shed cycle."

"Take a left here. Do I even want to know who the friend is? How did you even get this costume, it feels professionally done."

"A different acquaintance made it for me. And as for my friend, maybe I'll tell you when you don't have a bleeding hole in your leg."

Our conversation tapered off, and I followed the last of his directions until I was tapping on glass of an apartment window. After a moment I heard the curtains inside rustling, and then the lock being flipped and the window sliding open. I grinned at the mass of heat I recognized as Claire on the other side, stepping in with Matt still on my back.

"Decided to switch roles, did you?" She asked after I set Matt down and pulled off my mask. I forced my eyes closed despite the discomfort of feeling my eyelids over the old skin of my shedding eye caps, so that Claire didn't have to see them. "How did you even carry him, kid? Isn't he at least twice your weight?"

"She's strong," Matt answered for me, lifting off his own mask as Claire sat down with a large box of what I assumed were medical supplies and began to treat his wound.

"Of course she is. My life can't get any weirder, I don't know why I'm still surprised," The nurse said with long suffering in her voice that made me smirk half-heartedly. I had pushed it back when y mask was on, but having Matt injured like this was terrifying. Even worse, I knew he was going to hide it as much as possible during the day which meant he was going to be walking on his injured leg as he worked.

After Claire did as much as she could, I sling my guardian back onto my back and begin a much slower trek to our apartment. Matt was fading in and out of sleep, so the journey was silent. At least, until we got in and I laid him in his insanely soft bed.

"...I'm adopting you," he spoke up suddenly after I pulled the blanket up over his still mostly-costumed body. I looked down towards him in surprise. "I know you're strong. And I know I'm not invincible. It'll be better if we're there for each other— and besides, tonight proved you're too damn stubborn to _not_ be a Murdock."

I chuckled. "Goodnight, Matt," I muttered as I walked to the restroom to change out of my costume and into my pajamas. My whole body ached slightly from the long journey both ways, especially having to carry Matt so far, and the sudden ache in my chest told me that the female kidnapper must have landed a hit I hadn't noticed in the midst of mid-fight adrenaline. I'd probably have a nasty bruise.

And I knew that fights from then on probably wouldn't go in my favor so well. They weren't expecting me to be by Daredevil's side, but once word of the new Vigilante in Hell's Kitchen got out people would be ready for me.

I couldn't help but be excited.

—*—*—*—*—*

 **A/N. yeah, this didn't end up quite as good as I was hoping, but oh well. Maybe one more chapter before school starts up for Hebi? We'll see, I'm kinda just playing this by ear. And yes, Spider-Man/ Peter Parker will be a pretty important character once he shows up. I am making some changes to his character though, throwing in a little Fanon stuff to mix things up. But it is mostly based around Homecoming Spider-Man, with other canon and fanon mixing in. More about that in the A/N that will come along with his appearance chapter.**

 **Was this okay? Tell me what you think. Until then,**

 **See you next chapter!~**


	6. Chapter 6

**Otherwise known as the chapter where the author realizes her mistakes and makes up her own canon. Just go with it. This was an AU the whole time anyway, so I change what I want :P**

— ***—*—*—*—***

It was obvious to Matt and I that the group that I had been kidnapped, experimented on, trained by, and kidnapped by _again,_ had to be completely dealt with before school started. It was just an additional summer project, like the ones I was working on with Foggy to help me. He read out what I needed to do, and I would do whatever possible without use of my sight. He and Matt offered to teach me Braille, and I only accepted since it wouldn't hurt anything and I had no idea if it would ever come in handy to help Matt out or not, so it was just a good decision all around. I wasn't in any rush though, so lessons were slow and inconsistent.

When the seventh day of my shed cycle came, I couldn't help but heave a sigh. When I opened my eyes that morning, dull light filtered through a detached layer of skin and all I had to do was peel it away in order to expose the colors and shapes I had desperately missed during my six days of blindness. Perhaps that was the worst part of it; I wasn't allowed to get used to being blind like Matt had been. He wasn't constantly gaining and losing a whole sense, he just had to deal with the constant lack of it. But I was never allowed that. The days leading up to my shed were always stressful, because I couldn't help but hope that I would wake up being able to see even though I knew I wouldn't. And then having my eyesight returned like clockwork before I could even completely settle into the lifestyle of being blind— it hurt. It was stressful, annoying. I couldn't decide if it was better to just be permanently blind, because at least then I wouldn't have to deal with the emotional whiplash of the sensory teeter-totter I was constantly on.

I never told any of that to Matt, of course. It would be in- _sense_ -itive.

Bad Hebi, don't make sensory puns.

After peeling away my eye caps and sitting up, I took a moment to just look around and reacquaint myself with the appearance of my surroundings. With the familiarity of color and shapes and objects. Everything was soft, slightly blurry around the edges because of my bad eyesight, but it was there. It was better than being blind.

After a moment of settling back into being able to see, I opened my mouth and let the smell of breakfast waft onto my scent receptors. Matt was in the kitchen— I forgot how his hair was red during my shed cycle, and found myself unable to stop staring for a short moment as he cooked with his back turned to me— cooking omelettes and toast. I smiled despite the loaded thoughts I had been having, happy for the tiny bit of routine. I forced myself up, going over to make my morning tea as Matt finished up cooking.

"Morning," he greeted, turning his head slightly in my direction. He didn't try to make eye contact like he did with most people unless we were having a serious conversation. I stilled for a moment, trying to figure out when _that_ had become a thing. I remembered he had tried to make as accurate of eye connection as possible back when we had first met, but somewhere along the line he had gotten comfortable enough to stop doing that. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I turned the heat up under my teapot.

It made me happy to know that Matt was comfortable enough around me to not feel like he had to act like somebody with sight. We both knew it was unnecessary.

"Hebi?"

Oh, I had stayed in my thoughts just a couple seconds longer than normal. I had missed that Matt had been trying to talk to me.

"Sorry, I was thinking. What'd you say? And you shouldn't be on your feet, it's only a week."

Matt scoffed. "And I was on my feet last week too. I'm fine, stop worrying. That's my job," he flipped he omelette he was working on and ignored my disbelieving snort. "Anyway, I was asking if you wanted to come to the office today. We'll be spending most of the day working on paperwork, so you can just hang out and help Karen or something."

I shook my head, knowing he'd pick it up. "Nah," I opened the cupboards to pull out a few boxes of herbs. Would lemongrass and lavender go together? I wanted to try out a new blend. "I have to go over to my friend's today. He should have something ready so I can read during my shed."

I turned my head just in time to see Matt's raised brow. I had only told him that a friend of mine had promised to work on something to help me seem normal during my shed, but I hadn't said anything more in depth than that.

"How could he make something like that? I'm pretty sure I'd know about anything that could help a blind person read without Braille."

I winced, hating the fact that Matt had a point. Whatever Hank made probably wouldn't work for him, which just made me feel guilty. "I'm pretty sure he's making it to be compatible with my heat vision. I'll give you the full description once I find out what it is myself, okay?"

Matt didn't seem bothered in the slightest, which I expected because he was too fucking good of a person. He just nodded, humming in thought. "That makes sense. Tell me how it goes, and call when you're on your way back home."

"I can take care of myself," I said playfully, grinning at him. "In fact, I can take care of both of us at the same time. But if it helps, I'll make sure to call as soon as I leave my friend's house."

I couldn't quite see past his glasses, but I was pretty sure Matt rolled his eyes at what I said as he turned and plated my food for me.

"Thank you, _Boa."_

I groaned, picking up my fork and stabbing my omelette in annoyance. "I'm still upset about that! The press just completely ignored what the girl told them and changed my name. 'The witness stated the mysterious new vigilante wanted to go by the name Python. We have decided to instead name her Boa,'" I quoted the line I had memorized in the most annoying falsetto I could manage. The face Matt made assured me that I had succeeded.

"They stuck to the snake theme though, so I don't see why you're upset. Boa is better anyway," he responded.

"If they were gonna change it, they could have been creative instead of just jumping to a different species," I angrily shoved a bite of omelette into my mouth. "Like, they could have said _Biach_ , after the Biach Green Tree Python. Or Retic, like Reticulated Python. At least they didn't go venomous though, that would just be inaccurate."

I pointedly ignored the teasing grin on Matt's face when he sat down with his own food in front of me. I used getting my tea as an excuse to further ignore him for a full extra minute.

I had been grounded for the week after my sneak out, so I was going to be able to go out on patrol for the first time since then that very night, which made me a bit excited. I hid it though, not wanting to talk to Matt about my excitement and not wanting to seem like a little kid about it.

But I was the new person that he contacted first if he needed help, instead of Foggy. Because even Matt knew that I could defend myself better than his best friend, and he didn't want to put anyone in unnecessary danger when there was a safer solution.

"I know you're excited. I can still hear your heartbeat," said guardian ruined my illusion of secrecy in one swift blow, making me groan in despair around a bite of omelette. "You know the deal. Your grades slip, you are off of patrol until they go up again. Twice a week only, at least until you settle in at school. And you listen to me, no going off and doing your own thing without running it by me first."

I swallowed my bite of food, nodding. "Yeah, I've agreed already. Three times."

"You have a habit of not listening," Matt deadpanned, making me chuckle.

"Foggy's coming up, finish your food already."

Matt shook his head with a smile. "I know, I heard him."

"Showoff."

—*—*—*—*—*

An hour and a half later, I found myself once again at Hank Pym's doorstep. He was probably running through a drill with ants with Scott, because the tiny vibrations inside the house were enough to almost give me a headache. It was usually only that bad when I was standing right next to an anthill.

"Oh, it's you," Hope greeted when she answered the door. Normally something like that would sound rude, but from her it just sounded… neutral. She almost instantly picked up on the fact that I was off my shed cycle, her gaze locking with my uncovered eyes. "Huh, hazel. I like the green in them," she said casually before turning to lead me inside. I had to suppress a snort; I was no expert at social interaction, but she was terrible.

Hope didn't lead me to the dining room this time, but to the living room instead. Sure enough, there were obedient lines of ants marching in two different directions, carrying various items on their backs. I raised an eyebrow, watching them for a moment. I was pretty apathetic towards most bugs, not afraid but not interested. Arachnids were cool though, I had always been interested in tarantulas as a pet. And snakes. But after everything I had went through, I knew I'd have to wait until I was able to take care of myself before even thinking about a pet.

"Ah, you're here!" That was Hank, who looked up from watching Scott. The man seemed to be on his phone while using Hank's machine to control the ants, so it was likely just a multitasking exercise. The old man stood up, walking over to me. "You brought the sunglasses right?" I nodded at the man's words, slinging my backpack over my shoulder to pull out the glasses case from the small front pocket. I handed it to him, and the man disappeared down a hallway without another word. I raised an eyebrow, not used to how the man behaved when he was working on a project.

"Umm," I looked over at Hope, who rolled her eyes.

"He gets like this, don't worry. He'll be back out in a moment. You won't believe how excited he was about the challenge your problem gave him, he locked himself in his lab until he had a prototype figured out."

"I still can't believe nobody is talking about Ant Man," Scott complained from his spot on the couch, making me snort and take a seat across from him. Now that I was able to see, I took my time committing his and Hope's faces to memory. Hope was pretty, but severe and intimidating with her professional attire and sharp angled bob. The kind of woman I normally would have pinned as a secret corporate mastermind who controlled her business with an iron fist and her subordinates called a bitch behind her back. She definitely seemed a bit rough around the edges and too uptight, but she had been pretty nice to me so I was gonna give her the benefit of the doubt.

Scott, on the other hand, was normal. The kind of normal that was dangerous, he would blend into almost any crowd and seemed like the type that could get along with almost anybody if he tried. Easy to smile, with a spark of intelligence in his eyes that betrayed his tendency towards mischief. He was probably a petty criminal of some sort, I summed up, but trying to change. If he wasn't on the up-and-up, he wouldn't be Ant-Man after all.

Being homeless really helped give a person the ability to accurately analyze others.

"Have you even done anything as Ant-Man recently?" I asked, smirking. Scott looked up from his phone to meet my eyes.

"Well, no, but still! I'm way more interesting than this new vigilante people won't shut up about. _Boa_ ," he spat the name with jealousy, but there was no real heat to his voice. He was just being petty. "This guy's only popular because he helped out Daredevil. I bet they don't even know each other."

"Boa?" Hope spoke up, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. Did that woman ever sit down and relax? "Isn't that the snake-themed guy that helped Daredevil save those two girls from traffickers?"

"Snakes seem to be popular nowadays, don't they?" Hank's voice caused us all to look back at where he was coming back out from his lab. "First Hebi tells us about being given radioactive snake DNA, and the same day she asks for our help a mysterious snake themed vigilante shows up. The witness couldn't even remember if Boa was a man or woman."

I smiled, and I could feel the humor lighting up my eyes. That damn observant old man. The air was silent with Hank's sudden hint, and I darted my gaze to see that Scott was suddenly stiff with shock and there was playful betrayal in his eyes.

"Hebi! How could you, I thought we were friends! Blasphemy! Betrayal! How dare you steal my spotlight?"

"We have literally known each other for a total of less than fifteen minutes. Get over it," I quipped back happily, standing up to meet Hank halfway as he came over to hand me my sunglasses.

I raised an eyebrow at the old man, who gestured impatiently for me to take a closer look at the glasses. I rolled my eyes, pulling the arms back to see that a small device had been screwed to one of the arms, close to the lense where nobody would see it unless I took them off my face.

"Okay. How will this help me?" I asked, slipping the glasses onto my face.

"There's a button on the top of the device, click it," Hank instructed. I shrugged, raising my hand to find that the button came completely level to the top of the glasses arm, allowing me to easily click it down. Nothing seemed to happen. Hank didn't seem disturbed though, grabbing a book from a nearby bookshelf and placing it on the table on a random page. "Now sit down and look at the book as if you were going to read it normally."

I frowned in confusion, but did as he asked.

"And close your eyes."

I sighed, but closed them.

"Hank, what—"

"Look with your heat vision, Hebi. It's the only way to make this work," Hank instructed somewhat impatiently. I huffed in slight annoyance, but focused on bringing my heat vision into focus.

And… I saw squiggles? 'Saw' being a loose term of course, since I was actually feeling the temperature and not seeing with my eyes. "That's weird, there's little spirals of heat over the paper. Is that normal?"

"Of course, it's the whole purpose of the device. It works by targeting ink and raising the pinpoint temperature of the different metals and dyes in the ink. It also helps your heat accuracy, so instead of only being accurate to the sixteenth of an inch you can be accurate to the fourth of a millimeter. If you turn the button to the right, it increases the temperature of the ink so that the contrast is creature, I imagine it's like raising the focus on a camera lense. Turn it to the left for the opposite effect. You can raise the temperature to a total of one and a half degrees higher than the paper it's on, but I doubt you'll need to be that drastic."

I shook my head in amazement, raising my finger to gently turn the small dial to the right. It didn't take long for the squiggles of heat I sensed to become letters, albeit they were slightly hard to read since it was like reading super bold font, but it was just something to get used to.

"The cobra flattens its distinctive hood in order to look larger and scare off— did you honestly give me a snake book to test this out on, Hank?" I opened my eyes to look up at the older man through the very thick purple tint of my lenses. The man shrugged unapologetically.

"Stick to the theme," he said as explanation. "So there, we know it works. And just in case you need to switch glasses for whatever reason," Hank held out his hand, and I took off my glasses so I could see better. He opened his hand to reveal another device, identical to the one I had just tried out, laying in his palm. "This one has a second button on the bottom. That button activates the adhesive on the back, so you can stick this onto any pair of glasses you need it to stick to. Double click to release the adhesive and get it to unstick."

I gently took the tiny machine from Hank, wide eyed. It was already a bit mind blowing that the man had agreed to make just one of them, the fact that he had actually went out of his way to make a spare for me had me speechless.

"There is a catch," the man spoke casually, probably guessing my thought process. General rule of thumb, anyone who was homeless for any extended period of time was wary about accepting overly kind gifts. He probably picked up on that. I glanced up at him, putting my glasses and spare reading machine into my glasses case. "You have to stay for lunch. I know it's only nine, but you can help Scott train in the meantime. He relies on my tech too much. What's the point in being able to land a bullet-strength punch if he can't land a proper punch?"

I smiled, grateful. I slipped my glasses case back into my backpack, taking out the new glass jar of tea I had prepared for Hank and handing it over. He took it with a small grin and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Wait, Hank, what?" Scott stood up suddenly, looking and sounding slightly panicked. The neat rows of ants scattered briefly before getting back under control. Scott started to follow his mentor into the kitchen. "You can't be serious, I can't fight a kid!"

"That kid can beat your ass in five seconds without breaking a sweat. Don't you read the news? Boa took down two armed traffickers by herself. She can handle you without your tech."

"But I've been training with Hope!"

"It's good to switch up training partners."

I glanced over at Hope, trying my best to ignore the none-too-quiet argument going on. "You fight?" I asked her, and she shrugged with a smirk.

"Mixed martial arts. You?" She responded. I smirked back.

"Oh this is gonna be fun. Wanna spar? I apparently have time to kill."

"Oh my god Hope is gonna kill her," Scott's terrible attempt at a whisper made its way to my ear, but Hope and I ignored it in favor of heading down to their gym. Luckily I had planned to train by myself after leaving Hank's place, so I had training gear to change into in my backpack.

It wasn't long before we were both wearing our exercise clothes, gloves and padded helmets secured. Hank and Scott stood a safe distance away to watch, the older of the two men sipping from what I could easily smell was a cup of the tea I had given him just a few minutes earlier.

I waited for a moment, watching Hope's relaxed stance carefully. My feet were spread to the width of my shoulders, and I shifted my weight slightly from foot to foot. I had more patience than Hope did, it seemed, because she attacked first. I grinned in appreciation at her speed, ducking out of the way of her first harsh punch. Instead of rising to the bait and grabbing her arm, I used the opening to dart in close and jab my knee at her gut. She twisted away, my knee just barely clipping her side instead of hitting where I had aimed. Her own kick slammed up towards my head, but I ducked under it and grabbed her ankle to flip her over me and onto her back. She was able to surge up as soon as she hit the ground, her fist jamming harshly into my gut. I ignored it, gritting my teeth against the blow as I twisted myself around (like a normal person, not like a rubber band) her limbs and pinned her onto the ground.

In the end, I had more strength than she did and she had to tap out. I groaned, rolling off her and standing up to stretch backwards with a grimace. "Damn that hurt," I groaned softly. "Alright. Who's next?"

—*—*—*—*—*

After a couple of hours of good training and a delicious lunch, Hebi left the Pym's New York house. As promised, she picked up her phone and called Matt as soon as she left the property. The phone only rang twice before he picked up.

"Hey Hebi, you're on speaker. Foggy and I are working on paperwork."

Hebi smiled, her eyes habitually scanning her surroundings and she walked. "I figured. I just left my friend's house, turns out his daughter is a mixed martial artist so I stayed a bit longer than planned to train, since he insisted on me staying for lunch."

"They know that you can fight?" Matt asked right away, sounding both interested and worried. Hebi chuckled.

"They're trustworthy. My friend already put two and two together, which means that his daughter and her boyfriend learned about it too. I'll tell you more when you get home."

Matt was silent for a short moment before responding. "Alright, I trust you. And how do you have a friend that's old enough to have a daughter capable of sparring with you?"

"He's a grouchy old man," Hebi said, her voice teasing despite Hank being nowhere within earshot. "Last year I ran into him being threatened by some goons with guns, stopped them from shoving him down a concrete staircase. They scattered pretty easily once they saw they had a witness, my friend is on the more high-profile side of things."

"High-profile..?" Foggy asked slowly from the other side of the call. "Do I even want to know how many people you have on your side?"

"You don't survive as a teenager on the streets for two years without connections, Foggy," Hebi answered cryptically, smiling mischievously since she knew how the blonde would react to that. Sure enough, Foggy's long-suffering sigh didn't take long to travel through her phone.

"Yeah, I'm better off not knowing. Good to know you were confronting armed thugs way before you met Matt, by the way. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy."

Hebi rolled my eyes at Foggy's sarcasm.

"Anyway Hebi," Matt spoke up. "How did it go? Was he able to make something for you?"

The teen hummed in affirmative, her eyes darting to a display window to see a reflection caught in it. That reflection, plus her sense of smell and her ability to sense vibrations through the ground, clued her in to something she had been suspecting for the past couple blocks. She decided to play it cool for the moment, continuing her discussion with Matt as if nothing was wrong.

"Yeah, I tested it out too. It works beautifully, I'll show you later. I'm walking towards time square, got a guy on my tail. Looks like a normal thug, probably saw me walking away away from my friend's place and thinks I have money. I'll call you when it's over."

"Hebi, be careful," Matt managed to say before the teenager hung up the phone and shoved it in her pocket. Hank had opened a New York branch of Pym Tech two years earlier, which is why he had a house she was able to visit. It also meant it wasn't too hard for the right person to see her walking into the house of a high profile rich guy, and thinking that the lithe teenager was an easy target.

Glancing in windows to gauge the guy's frame, Hebi waited until she was in a slightly busier area, yet not quite in time square yet, before casually turning into an alleyway as if she was using it for a shortcut. It didn't take long for the guy following her to take the bait and join her.

Hebi waited until the man grabbed her by the shoulder and slammed her against the wall. Her lack of reaction made the guy pause, but after a split second he raised his hand to show off the knife gripped in it.

"Okay little miss, you're gonna—"

"Kick your ass? How could you guess?" Hebi asked, smirking and wasting no time grabbing the man's wrist right behind the knife he held, and surging forward to send a knee into his crotch. He instantly screeched, dropping the knife and backing up. Hebi held the knife handle between two fingers as if it was a cigarette, not letting her fingertips touch it. "This is a dangerous toy, you should be careful or you might hurt someone," he girl chucked her knife to the side, watching it slide under a dumpster out of the corner of her eye. The man growled, clambering up and running at her. Hebi raised her brows, whistling.

"Wow, I thought you were gonna give up," she remarked idly, easily dodging his tackle. She was about to lunge in and knock him out when a blur of red registered in her peripheral vision.

 _Matt?_ Hebi thought suddenly, but furrowed her brows when she realized he wouldn't have been able to make it to her location from the office in less than ten minutes, especially if he stopped to change into his costume. So, not Matt.

The figure was astonishingly quick, leaping forward and slamming an open-handed chop to the back of the mugger's neck. Hebi was barely able to hear a few _thwips_ before white threads shot into the air, wrapping around the man and pinning his arms to his body.

That was when it registered— it was _spider-man._ Hebi blinked, staring at the surprisingly short vigilante. He was only about her height, which was odd because she had imagined him a little taller, maybe closer to Matt's height. The vigilante turned to her, the surprisingly animate eyes on his mask widening slightly in what she guessed was supposed to mimic worry.

"Are you okay, miss? Gotta hand it to you though, that was a pretty good kick," spider-man's voice was also surprisingly high, it didn't quite sound like an adult's. Hebi frowned, tilting her head slightly.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful, Spider-man, but that was a waste of your time," the teen remarked blandly. The vigilante stiffened in surprise, his blink easy to register as the eyes on his mask mimicked it.

"Uh, what?"

"I mean, I'm well versed in self defense. I even disarmed him before you showed up," Hebi explained, nodding to the mugger. "I only came into this alleyway so I could deal with him without getting anyone else involved. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome to know that you're out there making sure less people get hurt," Hebi shrugged. "But I didn't really need the help. You're better off saving people who _haven't_ spent most of their life being trained in fighting."

"Oh, uh," spider-man seemed a bit caught off guard and confused, tilting his head. "I guess that means you know the drill, right? Call nine-one-one, stay calm, all that good stuff?"

Hebi couldn't help it, she smirked. "I got it, hotshot. I get you're a bit starstruck, you don't meet capable girls like me every day," Hebi walked up and patted Spider-man's shoulder mock-reassuringly. "Go on, I'm pretty sure other people need saving. I'll be fine."

The man seemed to get that she was teasing him, and rubbed the back of his neck a bit shyly. "Ah, well, have a good day. And I wouldn't make it a habit to confront people who are following you like that."

"Yes, that's very convincing coming from someone who purposely throws himself into danger every day," Hebi remarked sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Spider-man just snorted in agreement before webbing away. Hebi stared at the webbed up mugger for a moment, pulling out her phone and calling the cops. Once that phone call was over, she moved and knelt by the criminal, poking at the webbing.

"I was just wondering if I'd ever be able to get a sample of this stuff to experiment with, wasn't I?" She muttered to herself with a gleeful smirk.

—*—*—*—*—*

"Let me get this straight; _spider-man_ jumped in to save you?" Matt asked over dinner. Hebi had called him to assure him that she was alright right after everything was over, but had told him she'd give him the play-by-play later. Which happened to be at dinner, with Foggy and Karen listening in as well.

"It was pretty unnecessary," Hebi said with a shrug, shoving a forkful of fettuccine into her mouth. "I already had the guy disarmed and was about two seconds away from knocking him out when I saw a blur of red out of the corner of my eye. Obviously I paused, thinking it was you-know-who for a second, and the guy just jumps in, knocks the guy out, and webs him up like a burrito. We talked for a few seconds, the poor guy seemed so caught off guard that I wasn't scared and actually had things under control," Hebi informed them. Matt smirked slightly, Foggy snorted, and Karen just rolled her eyes before taking another bite of her food. "And of course, being the fantastic sciency mastermind I am, I took a sample of the webbing before the cops showed up to lug the guy away."

"Aha, I knew you seemed a bit too happy over the phone," Foggy remarked, shaking his fork at her in accusation. "When should we expect you to finish reverse engineering it?"

Hebi's shoulder slumped, and she legitimately pouted. Miss trained-as-an-Assassin-and-kickass-as-hell-for-a-fifteen-year-old _pouted._ She stabbed her fork into her pasta.

"Never. Or at least, not until I can get another sample or five. Naturally I ran right home after getting the sample, but as soon as I got my chemistry kit out," she meant the relatively new kit she had bought with performance money from the previous week when she was in shed and stir-crazy, "I set it down and it was completely dissolved. The slightly sticky ash left over was useless, I can't get any good information from it. So I'm back to square one— envying spider-man."

Karen leaned forward over the table towards Hebi. "Hey, don't be so sad about it. Why don't you try making something else first? I'm sure there are tons of sciency ideas in that head of yours waiting to come to life."

Hebi poked at her pasta again, thinking. She was silent for long enough that the adults went ahead and started their own conversations.

Karen had made Hebi think. There had to be projects she could start on her own, right? She didn't need to reverse engineer someone else's work, she was more than capable of coming up with her own invention. But what could she do? Where would she start?

She was in the middle of her brainstorming when another man, drunk by the scent of his breath, tripped nearby and was sent stumbling into Hebi's chair. She locked her muscles, forcing herself not to react in a way that would give away her abilities. Because of that, she fell and landed roughly on the ground next to the drunk man, the glass he had held shattered around them.

Hebi grimaced, carefully grabbing the hand Foggy was holding out to her and using it to pull herself up and away from the mess of glass shards on the ground.

"Hebi? Hebi are you okay?" Matt asked, stiff and straight in his seat. The teen dimly registered that he could probably smell the blood in the air. Then, she had to do a double take—blood? Hebi blinked, furrowing her eyebrows and raising her hand gently to her face.

"Oh, Hebi, are you alright?" Karen also asked, crouching next to Foggy with her hands gently on the younger girl's shoulder. Hebi pulled her hand away, seeing a small smear of blood on her fingers. Her face must have been cut by the glass.

"I'm fine, I should probably be looked at though. There might be tiny shards in my face," the teen reported, closing her eyes to see if she could feel anything wrong with her skin. "I don't think so though. I think I just got scraped up a bit."

"Come on, let's get you to the bathroom," Karen insisted, helping Hebi up and leading her to the restrooms in the back of the restaurant.

Looking in the mirror, Hebi found the damage was slightly worse than expected but still not an issue. There were four tiny cuts littered across her forehead and left cheek, with one longer one on her right cheek. None of them were deep, they'd scab over in a few minutes and probably completely heal in just a couple days.

Hebi let Karen gently dab at her face with a wet paper towel, her epiphany making her reaction time a bit slower than normal.

Her blood. Hebi had special abilities because of how her blood was altered. Hadn't she told Matt, way back when they first met two months earlier, that she wanted to find a way to temporarily give people different animal attributes to aid in healing or other things? Maybe she could start on that, even if she was only going into her sophomore year of high school.

And she knew exactly where she could begin.

Her hazel eyes lingered on the small smear of blood on her fingers.

—*—*—*—*—*

"You sure you're okay for patrol?" Matt asked, already dressed in his costume with his mask pulled down over his face. Hebi was already mostly in her own outfit, her mask loosely clutched in her hand. She scoffed.

"Yeah. I was a bit caught up with ideas for experiments, a few papercuts weren't enough to wake me up from my science coma," she told him easily, turning to look at herself in the mirror. Her cuts were already scanned over like she had predicted, the smaller ones well on their way to fading. She looked down, taking in her appearance in her costume for the first time. She had only laid eyes on it once before, and then she went into shed. This was the first time she was able to see herself actually wearing it.

The costume was mostly black and dark green, worked into a slightly scaled design all over. The design actually helped distribute more protection over the design while still allowing for flexibility. The green was spread over the black in small splotches, almost like camouflage — or like a snake's pattern. There were two hidden pockets on the hips, just big enough to fit her burner phone (that she had bought with leftover performance money after buying the chemistry kit) and any other small item she might need to keep in there.

Hebi then slipped on her mask, which covered her neck and her whole head, hiding all of her hair, but exposed the lower half of her face. The large two-way lenses were slightly yellow tinted, and softly slipped upwards into a small point. It was like a cross between Bratz eyes and a much less dramatic version of Spider-man's lenses. Like the web motif on Spider-Man's costume, Hebi's scale motif covered her mask as well. Her costume was only solid black under her arms and down her sides, the black ending over her hips where her pockets were.

"Alright, let's go," Matt had slipped into his Daredevil voice, all gravelly and probably an absolute horror on the throat. He tilted his head suddenly, taking a small sniff. "Are you wearing _lipstick?"_

"It disguises my lip shape," Hebi defended, walking out to him. "You can never be too careful. And honestly, when else will I have the chance to wear extremely dark green lipstick?"

Matt just shook his head, opening the window and letting Hebi get out first.

"Okay, so you know what the main goal is tonight," Matt started telling her softly. "We got rid of most of the group back when they kidnapped you. I finally managed to track down the three leaders, they'll be trying to hire new people today closer to the docks. Got it?"

"If we run into any crime on the way, I'll take care of it and follow your scent to catch up when I'm done," Hebi recited what he had decided with her the previous day. She knew it was mostly because he didn't want her to have to face the people who tortured her again, but she didn't mind. She'd let him be overprotective in this case, she'd make sure she was there anyway. "The guys will probably strike out again, everyone they've been hiring so far has been taken down by you. People will not be very enthusiastic about joining a group that has the Devil's eyes on them so closely. You know, proverbially anyway."

"Hebi," Matt warned, but she could tell he was trying not to smirk. Blind jokes were their thing.

"You do realize that if I make any friends in school and you meet them, the whole 'Justice is blind' thing is going to be the first thing I say about you, right?"

Daredevil just grunted, fully in Vigilante mode and not nearly as laid back as Matthew Murdock. But Hebi had enough flexibility for both of them— both in the _bend over backwards and flip a guy over her head with her feet_ way and in the _I can be carefree while I'm kicking a criminal's ass_ way.

Half an hour later, Hebi found herself alone in an alleyway with three robbers and a terrified teenage couple beat up but conscious on the ground. One boy was holding the other carefully, both of the boys watching with wide eyes as Hebi slammed her foot into the nose of one of their attackers, followed by her fist in his windpipe. With him momentarily down, she turned and blocked a punch from one man as the last attacker tried to slice at her with a knife. She was about to slam her hand into his wrist to make him drop the blade, but an already-familiar string of webbing caught his hand before she could.

"This is really close to Central Park, aren't you Daredevil's sidekick or something? Shouldn't you be in Hell's Kitchen?" The voice of Spider-man asked as the red and blue vigilante jumped down and landed a solid kick to the chest of the guy whose wrist he had webbed. Hebi huffed in slight annoyance, landing three quick punches to her guy's chest and abdomen before slamming her palm into his face. He went down hard, and Hebi turned to the guy whose nose she had broken to land a kick to the back of his head that knocked him out.

"I'm not his sidekick. I'm his nanny," Hebi replied, keeping her voice a little softer than usual to try and mask it a little more casually than Matt and his gravel voice. "Daredevil has no self preservation, I need to be there to cover him and make sure he doesn't get himself killed. Also, I had this covered," She shook her head, taking a phone off of one robber before walking over to the two victims. "I'm gonna call nine-one-one for you, okay? I need you to stay calm, you're safe now," Hebi turned her head at the sound of _thwip thwip thwip_ to see all three robbers cocooned in Spider-man's webbing. Steaming with slight jealousy, she dialed the emergency number and handed it to one boyfriend before standing up. Spider-man still hadn't left.

"Well?" Hebi asked, tilting her head at him. He shrugged.

"Still wondering what you're doing out this far. Maybe something big that you could use help with?"

Hebi felt her shoulders stiffen. " _No,"_ She said forcefully, stepping closer to him so that the victims wouldn't hear and get nervous again. She lowered her voice. "Hell no. Stay in Times square or over in Queens. You're strong, don't get me wrong, but you obviously don't have much formal combat training. Besides, this is personal," She clenched her jaw. "We're gonna wrap up the last of the Dryads, a group of kidnappers and mad scientists that experiment on orphaned kids," Spider-man's shock and disgust was nearly palpable. The guy had to learn to hide his emotions better, there was something seriously wrong when he was easy to read even though he had a full-face mask on. "I only hung back to take care of these guys. If you wanna help, make sure the crimes in this area are taken care of so that I don't get slowed down again. I have to catch up to double-D."

She turned, but Spider-man's hand on her shoulder stopped her for a second. "How personal?" He asked softly. She shook my head.

"Don't ask questions you don't want answered, Spidey," Hebi took that moment to slip out of his grip and run off, hopping between alley walls to get back onto the rooftops, where she then proceeded to follow Matt's scent to a smaller set of docks than the ones she had been taken to before.

Hebi could only reach the last rooftop before the docks, and growled in frustration at the sight of police lights. It looked like Matt got his wish after all; she only got a glimpse of the three balls of slime being herded into police cars, and none of the satisfaction of loading them with bruises.

Damn.

She decided to chalk half the blame on Spider-Man for stalling her with his chatter.

— ***—*—*—*—***

 **Another mess? Yeah. Should I even keep writing this? Maybe it will get better once she starts the School arc. I guess. We'll see. Blehhhh. Are you guys even enjoying this?**

 **See you next chapter~**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hahahahahah new perspective. This is where some of the fanon and stuff comes in. You'll see it right away, so I'll just shut up now.**

 **This didn't turn out quite as good as I wanted, but there's only like 12 of you guys reading this so oh fucking well. But I do appreciate every single one of you, so please don't stop reading! D'X seriously, please don't.**

— ***—*—*—*—***

Peter frowned, it was in the middle of the day after he had met two very confusing girls. Women? One girl and one woman? Didn't matter. Females. Two confusing females.

The first one was roughly twenty-four hours earlier, give or take an hour or two, and Peter could honestly say it was the first time he had ever been told that trying to help stop a mugging was a waste of his time. But otherwise, it was a pretty normal confrontation— for Peter Parker, not Spider-Man. It almost sounded like a conversation Peter would have with MJ. He just didn't have many normal interactions with people his own age while in the suit, so the moment stuck in his head.

But then there was the more worrying confrontation that came late that night— Boa. The new vigilante, who Peter now knew was a female and not a male like a lot of people seemed to think.

The conversation he had with Boa just brought up a lot of questions and concerns in the young hero. First of all, how similar was she to Daredevil and how did she learn to fight? Daredevil didn't kill, but he was a little too violent for Peter's tastes. Was Boa the same way? Her fighting style— what little Peter got to see of it— was pretty well refined. It reminded him of Natasha's fighting style a bit. Precise, strong, calculated, and ruthless. But it was also different, there were strikes he knew had to have come from a different source than the rest. Strikes that reminded him of boxing, simple but effective and intuitive. And she was fast. That kind of fighting wasn't taught in self defense schools, neither of the styles he saw. They were advanced, too advanced to have been learned from anyone average.

And secondly, the organization named Dryad stuck in Peter's head. Boa might not have clarified anything, but his gut told him that _personal_ meant it happened to her. Boa was most likely one of the kids Dryad had experimented on— so that brought up the question of how old of an organization they were, and if the guys Daredevil brought down were really the last of it.

Of course, Peter had spent the entire morning using all of his hacking skills to try and scrounge up data, but he wasn't familiar with the right places to look. His family claimed he was too pure to find out certain things, no matter how much of a genius he was. He always hated when they said that, but found himself having to begrudgingly agree in this case. He couldn't figure out where to look, but he knew who to ask.

The teen hopped off his bed, putting his Stark laptop on his bedside table.

"FRIDAY, do you know where Aunt Nat is?" He asked, grabbing his phone from his pillow. It had taken him a while to get used to the voice in the walls, but after living in Avengers Tower for two years he had grown used to having the AI around. Calling the Avengers "Aunt" or "Uncle" had taken longer than getting used to FRIDAY, calling Tony Stark "Dad," had only happened a few months earlier.

"Miss Romanov is currently headed to the common room. Do you wish for me to call her for you?"

"No, no," Peter hurriedly shook his head, already going to his door. "I'll go up to her, just ask her to wait for me."

"Sure thing, Peter."

"Thanks FRI," Peter said as he got into the elevator, which moved without him even having to voice where to go. FRIDAY already knew, after all. Natasha Romanov, AKA the Black Widow, was sat at the counter with a cup of juice when Peter walked in. He didn't need Nat to be looking at him to know she noticed his arrival— she noticed everything.

"What's up, baby spider?" She greeted with a grin. "Do you still want me to train you?"

Oh, right. He had asked Nat to start training him when he got home from patrol the previous night, still sore that Boa could instantly tell he hadn't had much professional training.

"Well yeah, but that's not why I wanted you to wait for me. I, uh," Peter sat down on the stool next to her and rubbed the back of his neck. "Something Boa said last night has been bothering me. She mentioned some group named Dryad, apparently the three guys Daredevil nabbed last night were their leaders. She was really worked up about it. Said that they're a group that kidnaps and experiments on orphans," as usual Nat's face was stoic, but the corner of her lips slightly turned down. "I think it was pretty personal to her. I wanted to make sure they were gone, you know, completely. But I can't find anything."

The Russian hummed in understanding, taking a sip from her cup. "I've heard of them, but I never really put much effort into learning anything. I can put out my feelers if you want, мой маленький паук," not a second after saying that, one of the vent guards flew from its place on the wall, and a familiar head peeked out of the vent.

"Don't bother, Nat. I know about those guys," Hawkeye said as he swung himself out of the vents and landed nimbly on the floor. "Morning, Petey boy."

"It's afternoon, Uncle Clint," Peter reminded the older man, eyebrows furrowed. The assassin shrugged, walking over and opening the fridge to root through it.

"Dryad's a pretty scummy group," Clint's voice was cheerful despite the information coming out of his mouth. "A wannabe red-room, which is why I kept them off Nat's radar or they all would have shown up dead a long time ago," the room grew a few degrees colder, courtesy of the readheaded assassin after that bit of info made it to her ears. Hawkeye pretended not to notice, closing the fridge door with a pudding cup firmly in his grasp. "Worse, they considered themselves scientific innovators. Wanted to make a new type of supersoldier and merge it with assassin training, like a unique sideshow version of our resident Robo Cop,"

"Uncle Bucky hates it when you call him that," Peter interrupted, frowning disapprovingly. The archer just shrugged, opening his pudding cup and digging a newly acquired spoon into it.

"They were slippery as hell. I was gonna track them down to get rid of them in a more humane way than Nat would have, but I got distracted by New York and Loki. I probably wouldn't have remembered the group if you didn't bring them up. You said this Devil of Hell's Kitchen caught the leaders?"

Pete nodded. "She said it was personal and didn't want me getting involved because, and I quote: 'it's obvious you don't have much formal combat training,' before she ditched me."

"Ah," The archer nodded, swallowing his mouthful of pudding. "That's why you asked me and Nat to train you. Well, only one kid survived their experiments the last time I checked. Based on what they were doing, I doubt they got another survivor. But if Boa is that girl, then you should probably stay away," Clint's eyes went hard all of a sudden. "Even if she escaped and managed to make herself into a vigilante, you should still think of her as a knockoff version of Natasha," he nodded to the steely redhead, who was tightly clutching her cup of juice. "It'll take a long time before she can get rid of the assassin's mindset Dryad doubtlessly drilled into her. And she's probably twenty, at the oldest. Dealing with that kind of trauma isn't going to be a cakewalk, especially when she's so young."

"Maybe I should look into this Boa," Natasha mused out loud, her body completely relaxed now and no longer showing even the tiniest hint of emotion that would give away what was going on in her head. "We don't know much about Daredevil anyway, and if she managed to run away from Dryad then she probably didn't complete whatever training they were giving her. I might be able to learn something about the guy," she sipped her juice. "Of course, I'll also be able to make sure she isn't an immediate threat. We don't know what kind of person she is yet. For all we know, she could actually be Daredevil's newest enemy instead of the sidekick we think she is. It wouldn't be hard to make it look like they were fighting together instead of with each other."

"She tried to keep me from getting hurt, and we met when she was already busy beating up muggers. She even called herself Daredevil's nanny," Peter argued, frowning. "I don't think they're enemies, and I don't think she's someone we should be looking at like a villain."

"Peter," Clint started, eyebrows drawn down. "You can't know—"

"My Spidey Sense never went off around her. Not even once," he insisted, adamant on his point. "I just want to make sure Dryad is completely finished. If they did experiment on Boa, then more members coming out of the shadows isn't going to do her any good. She needs to know that they are _gone."_

The silence stretched.

—*—*—*—*—*

 _A month later_

"Okay, we've had enough time with the punching bags. Ready for the ring?" Matt asked, his hand casually flat against the side of the bag he had been using. I finished up the kick I had already begun, then stopped the bag's swinging and nodded. Saturday sparring and training was probably my favorite part of the week. Despite the trauma that came along with Dryad kidnapping me and whatnot, even I had to admit that fighting was something I was meant to do. Just like dancing or science, I felt as if I was doing exactly what I was meant to do when I fought. I could tell Matt felt the same way.

Still, after the first few Saturday Gym Days, I had worked up a healthy respect for Matt and a deep sympathy for anyone who had to actually face him as Daredevil.

"I guess. But be careful, will you? Just because you can't see my bruising doesn't mean people won't try to file child abuse against you because of it," I quipped, both terrified and thrumming with excited energy at the prospect of fighting him again. Matt's mouth quirked up in a smile.

"Maybe you should dodge better then," he snarked right back easily. "Fighting a poor, defenseless—"

"Don't you dare," I pointed my finger at him, but didn't bother trying to hide my grin. "Defenseless blind guy, my ass," Matt laughed unashamedly as I walked by his side until we reached the boxing ring, the both of us climbing up into it. "Okay, rules for the spar?" I asked, tilting my head slightly.

"None," he answered, rolling his shoulders. "I want a challenge for now."

"Asshole," I hissed fondly, getting into position. Taking a deep breath, I forced my body to settle down. Releasing my breath, I felt my heartbeat settle into a calm rhythm. I kept my eyes on Matt's whole body, my mouth slightly open and all my available senses as focused as possible. I knew from experience that my ears would offer very little help, but it was always good to have my hearing focused anyway.

I made the first attack. Usually I waited for Matt, but the both of us had seemingly endless pools of patience when it came to combat so I decided to make the first move this time around. My reaction and strike speeds were faster than his, and I took full advantage of that as I slammed force into my big toes that sent me hurtling forward. I knew from experience that my strikes and lunges like that were hard to follow with the naked eye, but Matt didn't have that problem. Able to sense my attack easily, he danced out of my path with aggravating ease and used his left arm to block my accompanying kick. I never used my super strength against him when it came to actual strikes, since I obviously didn't want to break any of this bones or anything.

Having as little continuous contact with the ground was the best strategy I had been able to come up with for fighting Matt. It still ended in me losing every time, but limiting the vibrations of my movements that he could feel through the ground meant that I could last longer against him. Unfortunately, it also meant that I couldn't sense those same vibrations very often from him that could help me block or find openings so I knew my strategy needed adjustment.

My training before Matt had been completely assassination oriented, but those tactics were useless against him. He could sense any and all of my attacks the second I began them, no matter where I was or what I was planning. Projectiles? Though I hadn't shot at him for obvious reasons, he could dodge anything I threw easily. The darkness offered no advantage whatsoever, and even my painfully silent movements were more than loud enough for him to pick up on. He had to teach me, little by little, his own style so that I could have an arsenal of moves to use not only against him, but also for crowd control purposes. I learned fighting techniques to allow me to take down four or five or more enemies so that I wasn't as easily overwhelmed when outnumbered anymore.

A solid fist met my torso, sending me skidding back several feet. I took a sharp breath, but shrugged off the sharp ache and rushed back in.

"Wait," Matt called out, making me pause in the middle of a new strike. His brows were furrowed. "I hit you right in your diaphragm, but you didn't gasp for breath or anything. That hit should have stopped you completely," he informed me, confused. I blinked.

"Really? I mean, it hurt like hell and I definitely lost my breath, but…" I knew exactly what a hit to the diaphragm like that _should_ have done. It was a very basic weak point strike I had been taught long before even meeting Matt.

"I know, I heard the air leave your lungs," Matt confirmed, crossing his arms. "But the little breath you took shouldn't have been enough for you to completely recover. It doesn't make sense."

I frowned, thinking back on all of my previous fights to see if there was an explanation. "Well…" I started slowly. "Come to think of it, I don't get short of breath really. I had mild asthma before the whole Dryad thing, but ever since the experiments I've had no problem with shortness of breath. Even after running or exercising for a long time," the answer suddenly came to me, making me blink. "Snake DNA."

"I'm sorry, what?" Matt asked, my sudden remark catching him a little off guard. "I'm not an expert in biology, what about snake DNA? Is it an ability you didn't realize you got from it?"

"Snakes have an extremely low oxygen requirement," I explained. "That's why herpetologists say never to behead a snake, because they'll stay alive for so long afterwards due to that low oxygen requirement that it's inhumane. Snakes can survive in closed boxes and even underwater for surprising amounts of time because they don't need to breath as often as humans," I was smiling, Biology and the excitement of a possible new ability making me giddy. "I've never tested my ability to hold my breath, actually. Not that I can remember anyway, they might have done it back during experiments but I've suppressed most of those memories."

Matt shrugged, ignoring my probably concerning nonchalance regarding my torture and memory suppression. "Let's test it out now, then. If you ever have to swim to rescue somebody or somebody tries using gas against you, it could be important to know your limit."

I nodded eagerly, walking over and sitting only a couple feet across from him. I crossed my legs and sat as if I was going to meditate, which I had also been taught by Dryad but Matt had gotten me into again for more healthy reasons. I exhaled for a long moment, getting rid of every bit of air from my lungs that I could for accuracy's sake. Matt nodded when he could hear no more air, and I took a normal deep breath and held it.

I slipped into meditation as I held my breath, closing my eyes. Paying too much attention to myself would make it harder to continue holding my breath, so I cleared my mind and left it up to my body to warn me when I needed to take a new breath.

I lost track of time meditating. The next thing I was aware of, my lungs were starting to lightly burn. It wasn't too bad, so I didn't react. A short while later I could not longer ignore the discomfort, and let loose my air in a _whoosh._ The fresh oxygen I took in felt and tasted sweet, instantly soothing my body. I opened my eyes to see Matt's reaction.

My gua— _father_ , the paperwork had gone through and he had officially adopted me two weeks earlier— had his red eyebrows raised high on his face. His thumb clicked down on a button he had on his phone, and a mechanical voice spoke into the air:

"Twenty-two minutes and thirty-seven seconds."

"So closer to twenty-two minutes even, since I took too long to stop the timer," Matt finally spoke. "But, still. That's amazing. What about when your lungs aren't completely full?"

I shrugged. "I can test that on my own, you'll probably get bored with all this experimentation stuff," really, I just wanted to do so many trials that I knew he would get frustrated with how tedious it was by the end. "I'll tell you the results though. Ooh, I can swim all secretly under the water for stealth missions," I was bouncing excitedly from my spot sitting in the middle of the ring with Matt.

"You're a vigilante, not a spy Hebi," Matt's dry comment was balanced by the humor shown in the grin on his face and the slight cock of his eyebrow. "Honestly. Missions?"

"Name's Murdock. Teal-Murdock. Hebi Teal— Okay it just doesn't work. I can't do the whole Bond thing with a name that long," I whined with a pout that Matt couldn't see. He chuckled all the same, probably just from the sheer absurdity of my tone of voice. But, without mercy, he stood up and placed his phone on a chair where it was out of harm's way again.

"Okay, now that our curiosity is sated. Your reaction time might be superhuman, but you need to get better with your stamina. Taking down two people in less than two seconds isn't going to do anything if you're too worn out afterwards to keep protecting yourself."

My stamina wasn't _that_ bad, but his exaggeration got the point across nonetheless.

"Crowd control training then?" I asked almost rhetorically, knowing that it was the one that tested my stamina and endurance the most. Matt nodded.

"After one more no-holds-barred spar. We didn't finish the last one."

Part of me was very happy he couldn't see the predatory smile that took over my face at that declaration. Maybe I liked fighting a bit too much. Even if Matt always handed me my ass.

"I'll try not to bruise you too much since you have the first day of school on Monday," he teased. The reminder sent a thrill of nervous and excited energy through me, making me slightly jittery.

"Careful," I replied without the predatory smile fading away from my face even the slightest. "Adrenaline might give me an advantage."

"Good, maybe you'll finally give me a run for my money then."

"You're such a jerk."

—*—*—*—*—*

Hebi could only be happy that her she'd cycle did not overlap with the first week of school. She wanted to be able to take in all the sights right away and not have to flounder around trying to find rooms in an unfamiliar environment while blind. So, she was pretty happy when she walked up to the campus alongside Matt early that Monday morning able to take in the sight of her new school without issue.

"You have your hearing aids, right?" Matt asked casually, even though he could probably sense the small items resting in the teen's pockets. She looked at him, raising an eyebrow and hoping her attitude could somehow be tangibly felt. He picked up on it regardless, smirking at her. He had strong armed her into getting some back when he had adopted her officially, and she agreed only so that she had proof of a disability that she could use as an excuse if her abilities made her behave oddly during school hours. She hated the fact that she needed what she felt was a handicap, and Matt understood that sentiment so intimately that he made sure not to bring up the devices unless necessary.

Taking the hint, Hebi slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the small case holding the hearing aids. Quickly, as if to try and forget about them, she pushed the devices into her ear and shoved the case back into her pocket where it could remain unseen.

"You know, those things typically work best when they're turned on," Matt said, voice once again painfully casual. He knew how hard it was for Hebi to even so much as put the aids in, let alone actually use them. He could feel her whole body slightly sag as she sighed, then raised a hand up to turn on the devices and dial them up to the proper volume.

Feeling like she needed some extra encouragement after that, Matt put a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. "It'll take some getting used to, but try okay? You can turn them off if things get too loud. I know how overwhelming school was for me after the accident."

Hebi wrinkled her nose. "Okay. The smells will be the worst thing I think, but I lived on the New York streets so I can deal. I think. Probably. I'll call you if I get overwhelmed," _maybe_ , she added silently to herself. She didn't want to bother him during work if it wasn't necessary. He patted her shoulder.

"Okay. Text foggy during lunch, I don't want you calling unless it's really an emergency but I still want an update or two on how you're doing. Call me when school's out so I can meet you halfway home if I can."

"Such a dad," Hebi teased, feeling light and weightless and happy for a dangerous moment. He had the tendency to make her feel like that, despite how ingrained it was in her to fear joy like that since she knew from experience that it made the bad things that would inevitably happen next that much less bearable. "Go to work, you got paperwork and meetings waiting for you."

Matt nodded, then took his cane and extended it since he was going to be walking without someone "leading" him now, and walked off after one last goodbye.

Looking at her new school again, Hebi took a deep breath and walked up with her hands tightly clutching her backpack straps in front of her shoulders.

It was obvious people knew she was new, as she got many looks as she walked through the hallways. It was a magnet school after all, it didn't get many new students since it had strict guidelines for enrollment and who was or wasn't allowed to apply for attendance. Thankfully, most people seemed to shrug her off as a freshman so the looks didn't linger very long.

Having had the usual breakfast at home, Hebi stopped at a bench instead of the cafeteria to pull out her schedule. No harm in getting to her first class a little early, after all, especially since she didn't know the layout of the building yet.

Eyes scanning over the campus map and her schedule, she made her way slowly towards her first class of the day. English. Easy enough to start with.

She pulled up to the right door only to see that the room was dark on the other side, which made her frown. The teacher wasn't there yet. She turned around, deciding to just sit by the door and wait, only to stiffen in surprise at the sight of three people behind her, staring at her. The two boys looked confused, and the sole girl amongst them looked slightly interested but mostly bored.

"Um, do you need help finding your room? This is a sophomore level class," the tall, skinny boy of the trio asked awkwardly. Hebi blinked, and then rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

"Ah. Actually, I _am_ a sophomore," Hebi replied, suddenly not as confident as she usually was now that she was around people her own age. All three of them raised their eyebrows.

"Oh, wow. You must have had to jump through some serious hoops to enroll after your Freshman year," the shorter, chubby boy pitched in his thoughts. He got an elbow in the gut from his friend for his phrasing. Something about that attitude, though, made a few knots in Hebi relax and she chuckled.

"I sure did. I'm Hebi, Hebi Teal," she introduced herself, barely remembering in time that normal teenagers didn't typically shake hands when introducing themselves. Matt and Hebi had agreed to keep her last name as just "Teal," at school, since Murdock was a bit of a high profile name after Fisk's takedown and it would keep Hebi safer at school to leave it out for the time being.

"Michelle," the girl introduced herself casually, nodding her head in greeting before sitting down on the floor near the door and proceeding to ignore the three of them in favor of reading the book she had. Hebi raised an eyebrow in good humor, smirking at the boys.

"She always like that?" Hebi asked, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice. It made the boys in front of her smile, and they nodded.

"Yeah, don't worry about her. I'm Peter, and this is Ned. Um, wanna sit with us until the teacher gets here? I mean, I totally understand if you don't but I just thought—"

Sensing that the boy's rapid-fire speech wasn't going to stop anytime soon unless she stopped it for him, Hebi just smiled. "Yeah sure, that sounds great. I don't really know anybody yet, obviously," she was slightly distracted as she moved to sit with them as they sat down on the floor by the door together. Peter smelled familiar, but Hebi couldn't place why. It had been a whole month since she had seen Spider-Man, in or out of her own costume, though, so she couldn't be blamed for shrugging it off and thinking that she had probably just run into him on the street or something.

Peter, on the other hand, had recognized her immediately as that girl from the alleyway that had called his trying to save her a waste of his time. Barely able to believe his own crazy luck, he found himself wanting to talk to her. So far she didn't give off the same badass vibes she had back when she had fought off her own mugger, but as he asked her casual (he tried at casual anyway) questions about the kind of science she liked most, he gradually saw that personality come out as she got more and more comfortable around him and his friends.

"I mean, what if you took a reptile's smaller oxygen requirement and isolated the DNA compounds that made it possible? Theoretically, you could use that to help asthmatics and the need for inhalers would drop drastically," She was ranting, the confidence Peter remembered from the month before suddenly present in her voice and eyes. Ned and Peter, as fellow nerds, were absorbed in every word she said. Peter more so than Ned though, since Ned was more techy and Peter was more Biology-and-chemistry oriented like Hebi herself.

"Don't you think spiders have more potential though?" Michelle asked casually, her smug glance at Peter making the poor guy squirm. Hebi, not suspecting anything, groaned in dismay, making all three of her new friends raise their eyebrows.

"What? Don't like spiders?" Ned asked, smirking at Leter almost the same way Michelle had. Hebi wrinkles her nose, then glanced around to make sure nobody was in earshot. She leaned forward so they could hear her as she spoke softly to them.

"Okay, you can't tell anyone about this—they probably wouldn't believe the story anyway— but I met spider-man like a month ago," Ned and Peter's eyes widened comically, and Michelle raised her eyebrows. Hebi missed the amusement that filled the other girl's eyes to the brim. "This guy was gonna try to mug me, and Spider-Man showed up—"

"Oh my god, are you okay?!" Ned asked, forcing Hebi and Peter to shush him immediately. He shrunk back a bit, but repeated; "Well? He didn't hurt you, did he, the mugger?"

Hebi scoffed. "Yeah right, the guy was an amateur. I've learned self defense since I was little, and had the guy disarmed and almost taken down before Spider-Man even showed up. He didn't need to, really, but he webbed the guy up and I teased him about the fact that I hadn't needed the help. Anyway, not the point," Hebi waved her hand to show that the attack itself wasn't what she had brought the topic up for. "Anyway, I've been jealous of the guy pretty much since he showed up. I mean, he created accurate synthetic spider webbing when scientists have been trying and failing to do that very thing for decades? What the hell? The medical applications, if the formula can be adapted, are ridiculous," Hebi ran a hand through her short hair. "So I took a sample off the mugger before the cops got there. But the stupid thing dissolved before I could examine it, do you have any idea how _frustrating_ that was?!"

"No, I can't even imagine. Can you imagine, Pete?" Ned asked his friend, a smile nearly splitting his face in half even as he tried his hardest to keep a poker face (obviously didn't work). Peter, eyes wide and frantic with panic, shook his head even as he tried to telepathically communicate to Ned to shut up (that didn't work either).

"N-n-nope! Can't imagine it at all! What were you saying about blood examination, Hebi? That was really fascinating. Oh look, here comes Mrs. Phillips!"

Hebi, thoroughly confused and not at all oblivious to their awkwardness (she _was_ a trained assassin, despite the fact that she wasn't purposely trying to analyze anyone at the moment and was trying very hard to be normal), looked over at Michelle as Peter and Ned hurriedly got up to greet the teacher.

"Are they always that jumpy? Do they not like Spider-Man or something?" Hebi asked, feeling like she was missing something huge. Michelle just snorted, closing her book and standing up.

"Nah, they're just losers like that. You get used to it."

"Uh, Okay then," Hebi agreed with a shrug. She hadn't interacted with people her own age for more than five minutes in _years_ , so nobody could blame her for shrugging off the behavior as nothing too odd. After all, she was probably the worst person to try and decide how normal teenagers should act. She ran an online store that sold homemade tea blends, performed on the street on weekends for fun, was a vigilante at night, and had PTSD because of being experimented on and trained to be a child assassin for a chunk of her childhood. So.

Oh yeah, and there was the whole used-to-be-homeless thing too.

Resolving to try and figure the boys out some other time, Hebi stood up and followed her new friends and teacher into her first class of the day. Not wanting to give up the small bit of comfort she had gained from the three other teens, she sat close to them at the back of the room. Really, that meant that she sat on Peter's right while Ned was on his left and Michelle sat behind them.

Yeah, Hebi actually let Michelle sit behind her despite her training yelling at her to get her back to a wall for safety reasons. She was really out of her element.

At least she sat right against the window and had a very clear view of the door.

The room was mostly filled within the next handful of minutes, but even dealing with the onslaught of scents and heat signatures couldn't blind Hebi to the way Peter twitched at the next boy to enter the class. Watching her new friend out of the corner of her eye, Hebi observed as the new boy walked straight over to sit in front of them, wasting no time after dropping his backpack to the floor before turning to face them.

The sneer on his face did nothing to endear him to Hebi.

"Hey new girl. You probably don't know this, but you don't wanna sit next to Penis Parker. His Lame is contagious."

Hebi raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. Normal social interaction she was hopeless at, but this? Dealing with a bully? Not so much.

"At least he has an IQ above thirty, so far you have me doubting that you do," Hebi drawled lazily, not missing a beat. "And honestly? Lame? Maybe I should help you out with your insults. That is, if you have time after school that isn't taken up by tutoring. Maybe I should teach you manners while I'm at it— Hi, my name is Hebi. What's your name, so I know what to put down on my Shit List."

The boy's face was rapidly growing red. Hebi dimly wondered if human heads could explode from a buildup of anger and embarrassment. Next to her, Peter and Ned were simultaneously sputtering and trying very hard not to laugh. Michelle didn't bother trying to hide anything, she snickered unrepentantly.

"Flash," he bit out angrily. "But it won't matter, you'll forget it once I hit you over the head," he raised his arm, ignoring the way Ned's face was growing exceedingly more smug and Peter was frantically shaking his head and trying to warn Flash about his impending doom. Deciding not to make the scene the boys clearly expected her to, though, Hebi just smirked.

"Oh please, go right ahead. I'm sure beating up someone with a disability will make you look _real cool,"_ Hebi's voice dripped with sarcasm at the end of that sentence, what she said making Flash pause. Deciding to make her point, Hebi reached into one ear and pulled out a hearing aid, displaying it to Flash. She might have hated the damn things, but she wasn't about to show weakness in front of Flash. At least this way, the aids could actually serve her a purpose she was comfortable with. "Of course, you could always finish that swing and get _beat up_ by someone with a disability in less than five seconds flat, but that's up to you."

The teacher clearing her throat at the front of the room made Flash's choice for him, and he grumbled but turned around and took his seat. Hebi probably shouldn't have, but she felt very smug. Ned and Peter's wide-eyed gazes on her made her preen a little bit.

"You can call me MJ," Michelle said from behind Hebi, who couldn't hold back a smile at the implication behind that deceptively simple declaration.

"Alright everybody," the teacher at the front of the class drew the attention to herself as the bell went off to signal the start of the period. "As some of you have already seen, we have a new sophomore joining you guys. Treat her well. Introduce yourself please," the teacher said, nodding towards Hebi. The girl nodded, standing up and trying very hard to hide her awkwardness. Thankfully, poker faces were taught in Assassin 101.

"Hey. I'm Hebi, and yes I have purple hearing aids in. No, I'm not deaf, yes I can hear you whispering about me over there because the aids are _on_ and I am not an idiot," Hebi pointedly glared at the girl at the front of the class who had been whispering about her none too nicely. Or quietly. That girl sucked at whispering, actually. "And yes, I know sign language," she used her hands to sign along with that last declaration. Figuring she had answered the most likely questions, she nodded and sat back down. The teacher blinked, raising an eyebrow at the girl's attitude but ultimately shrugging it off and turning to start droning on about what they could expect to do throughout the year in that class.

"Dude, you are so cool!" Ned whispered loudly, leaning over his desk to look at Hebi around Peter. Hebi snorted, smiling at the hyper boy. "You told off Flash and made having a disability look cool. How bad is your hearing anyway if you're not deaf?"

Normally Hebi would have been annoyed, but Med was asking so innocently that she actually found herself holding back laughter at his questions.

"I'm about halfway to being deaf, maybe a bit more," Hebi answered softly, marveling at the fact that she could actually still hear herself despite her voice being so low. Having hearing aids was so _weird._ "Normally if I'm whispering like this, I wouldn't be able to hear myself. If I turn the aids off or don't have them in for some reason, don't sneak up behind me. I might punch you in your throat."

Ned and Peter's hands instantly flew to their necks, and they grimaced. MJ, behind them, gave an approving hum.

"Hey, I know this is going to sound weird," Peter said after class as the four of them walked through the hallways. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "But, uh, I think it's cool that you have hearing aids. Or, well, shit that makes me sound mean. I mean that it's cool. Or fine..? I sound insensitive, don't I? What I want to say is that one of my uncles is deaf and he's, like, one of the most badass people I know. He's also incredibly immature but he and I prank the rest of my family sometimes, it's great. And I know sign language because of him so if you want someone to talk to—"

Taking pity on the poor rambling teen, Hebi chuckled and awkwardly patted Peter's shoulder. "Thanks. I'm glad you don't treat me like I'm glass. The most badass person I know is blind, and he hates it when people treat him like he isn't capable of taking care of himself. I'm the same way, treat me like you'd treat your uncle. You seem to like him a lot."

Peter nodded excitedly. "He's super cool. His eyesight is perfect, he has, like, almost superhuman aim. It's crazy."

Hebi chuckled, surprised at how relaxed he, Ned, and MJ had already made her.

"Ooh! Let's compare schedules, your class might not even be in this direction!" Ned spoke up suddenly, pulling a crumpled piece of paper form his pocket hurriedly. Hebi wicked, having not thought about that.

"Shit, you're right. Here," she handed her own schedule off to Peter and Ned, whose eyes scanned the paper quickly. Peter was the first to relax.

"Man, What luck!" Peter smiled widely. Hebi wondered to herself if he had ever blinded anyone with that bright smile. Huh. Man blinded by bright smile, gains superhuman sensitivity to Peter Parkers. Hebi had to hold back a snort at her ridiculous thought process. "You have most of your classes with me and Ned, and you have MJ in the two you don't have with us."

Hebi felt a grin tugging at her lips. "That is some luck," she agreed. Maybe the stuff she was going to learn wasn't the only thing she had to look forward to at school. Apparently she hadn't lost the ability to make friends, even though she thought she had.

—*—*—*—*—*

"You shorted out the robotic arm by touching it…" Peter said slowly, confusion all over his face. The four of us, me, Peter, Ned, and MJ, we're sitting together at a mostly empty table eating lunch. May had decided to mother hen, and had not only bought a Japanese lunch box— bento— but had actually filled it with a modern Japanese lunch. Because I was fifty percent Japanese and apparently he wanted me to have memories of that heritage not related to my evil father.

It was delicious.

Ned was trying his hardest not to laugh, and MJ had amusement all over her face. I was trying very hard not to cut my piece of omelette in half with my chopsticks.

"Yes, Peter, that is what happened."

"It wasn't even _on,"_ he continued, still baffled. At least he wasn't laughing. I sighed, rubbing my forehead with my free hand.

"I suck at engineering. Tell you what though, I need to get better if I want to make breakthroughs sooner rather than later. I can't be shorting out machines with just my presence. Could you help me out after class or during study hall?"

Peter hesitates, clearly thinking something over. "Well… I can't help out on days that we have decathlon practice, and I have stuff to do after school most other days. But if you want, you can come over to my place during the day on Saturdays…"

"Dude!" Ned interrupted, eyes wide. He proceeded to very terribly whisper to Peter: "We just met her today, you can't just invite her over right away!"

"Even if I couldn't read lips, Ned, I can still hear you," I deadpanned, raising a single eyebrow at him. The boy blushed in embarrassment, ducking his head.

"I thought you turned your hearing aids off because the cafeteria is too loud…"

"I _did."_

"Oh…"

Peter managed a smirk at our interaction, but looked a little troubled by Ned's words. "Well," Peter started slowly, hands fumbling with his fork. "Ned's kinda right, Hebi. My family is really protective and I can't just let anyone come over," he worried his lip between his teeth. I raised both my eyebrows at that, tilting my head. He caught the movement, looking up at me sheepishly. "Oh, uh, they're kinda high profile, you know? I was, uh, adopted two years ago but they kept my last name the same in school to avoid me getting too much attention."

I smiled, causing Ned and Peter to blink. "Oh! That's so weird," I put my chopsticks down. "I'm the same way. I just got adopted, officially, two weeks ago. But my dad has been my legal guardian for several months now," I chuckled at the way Peter's eyes widened comically. It seemed to be a very common reaction for him. "My dad's kinda high profile too, lately, so we did the same thing. I totally get it, he probably won't let me invite any friends over to our place unless he gets a full background check and meets you all in person at least twice," I rolled my eyes fondly. "He probably wouldn't have let me visit your place without meeting you first, anyway, so it's cool."

"Well, the robotics lab is open on weekends," Ned pitched in, drawing us back to the original topic. "Pete and I can both help you out, that way!"

Ned's energy was strangely comforting. Normally bursts of energy would mean trouble or danger, but his energy was constant and steady and didn't set off my adrenaline. It was nice. And Peter, though a constant ball of awkward nerves, held the same kind of constant energy and it was a very good change of pace for me. I smiled at their offer, nodding.

"Sounds good, I got Saturdays free," I answered. I usually went out to busk on Saturdays after our morning in the gym, but Mat would argue that school was more important anyway. In this case, considering that learning how to deal with machinery was important for my scientific future, I agreed. "My dad and I train together on Saturday mornings though, so when do you want to meet up here so I know when to cut it short?"

Peter tilted his head as he thought. "What about ten? I got some stuff to do in the morning too, but I should be able to get out by then."

I nodded easily, having to mentally reinforce that he meant ten in the morning, not at night like all of my shady meetings would have been. Or vigilante meetings, as it was lately. I didn't even realize how odd it was for a teenager to be up before ten on a Saturday, considering I didn't have anything accurate to compare to.

"Cool!" Ned bounced in his seat. "I'll be here too! I can't wait until we get to teach you coding, it's so fun, you'll love it! Do you like legos?"

Legos? I furrowed my eyebrows. "What are legos?"

The silence was deafening, and I would have shrank back in my seat if it wasn't for my training telling me to hold my ground and show no weakness.

"How do you not know what legos are?" That question actually came from MJ, who put her book down with something like concern in her eyes. I rubbed the back of my head with one hand, using the other to shove a bite of my food into my mouth. Japanese omelette, yum.

"Hebi…" Peter spoke slowly. "I hope I'm not overstepping, but who was taking care of you before your dad got guardianship?"

I swallowed my food. Unable to run away, no escape, subject change had zero chance of success. Lie? Not recommended. Truth? Also not recommended. Half-truth it was.

"My birth mother was awesome, but we were pretty poor so I probably missed out on a lot. After she died, my birth father…" I bit down the bile that threatened to rise in the back of my throat at the thought of him. "Let's just say that, before _he_ died, he kept me in the house all the time," without much of anything not needed for survival went unsaid, but understood if Peter's expression was anything to go off of. "After that, I lived on the streets for a couple years 'cause I didn't want to risk foster homes, you know? Meeting my dad was a stroke of luck. And we aren't going to talk about this again, deal?"

Peter and Ned nodded frantically, Michelle just frowning before giving a single solid nod of agreement.

"Okay, So legos are toys. Most of them are technically meant for little kids, but…" Ned started to explain, and I listened raptly between bites of my food as he and Peter told me about the toys and showed me pictures of what they had been able to make with the little bricks. I vaguely remembered having them in my kindergarten class, but those memories were so dull that I wasn't surprised I had been unable to make the connection.

"I'd totally be up for putting some together with you guys," I spoke up when their explanation was over and my food was almost gone. "Choose a pretty easy set at first though, yeah? If I'm able to short out a robotic arm with a simple gaze, I don't even want to know what I can do to a thousand-piece lego set."

The laughs following my statement made me smile softly. Hopefully it wasn't a mistake to trust these strangers with so much info, even if the lies carefully strung throughout it should be enough to throw them off if necessary.

My phone buzzed, reminding me that I had forgotten to text Foggy like I agreed to. I yelped, pulling the phone up and answering the call. "Sorry, sorry! I only have five minutes left in lunch—"

"You scared me for a second Hebi," Matt's relieved voice came from the other side of the call. "How's your day? Doing okay? You don't usually forget to text Foggy when I tell you to."

"Yeah, actually. I made some friends."

"Really? That's surprising."

"I know r— _hey!"_ I laughed along with him, the jerk. "I'll tell you all about it when I get home, okay? I gotta go, call you when school gets out."

"Alright, bye."

My three new friends were looking at me with knowing smiles, and I just huffed and put my phone back in my pocket. "Shut up," I grumbled even though they hadn't said anything. "I told you, I'm lucky to have my dad."

—*—*—*—*—*

"So I'm guessing it was a good day?" Matt was asking as we walked home together, him having met me four blocks away from the school.

I smiled.

"Yeah. Yeah it was."


End file.
